


Blue Glass Jug

by orphan_account



Category: EXO (Band)
Genre: Djinni & Genies, Explicit Sexual Content, M/M, Magical Realism, Minor Character(s), Minor Kim Jongin | Kai/Park Chanyeol, Other Ships Not Mentioned in Tags
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-01-01
Updated: 2018-01-01
Packaged: 2019-02-16 07:51:19
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 4
Words: 25,106
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13049718
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/orphan_account
Summary: Jongin accidentally fiddles with a summoning object and finds himself in an alternative earth with three wishes and a djinni with a work ethic that could possibly rival Rumpelstiltskin's.Also, he doesn't know it yet, but this is where Bonnie and Clyde meets One thousand and one nights.Prompt R2.227





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Prompter: this au was a gift, I'll be very sorry if I didn't do it justice. It deserves all the amazing concepts. All.
> 
> Mods: Thank you so much. Part of the appeal of this fest was how you insisted on it not interfering with the other real life obligations we might have had. You were patient and kind.
> 
> Myu, the beta: You gave me a lot of things to think about. Your enthusiasm was really lovely and much appreciated.
> 
>  
> 
> Reader: I want you to love this, I hope you will.

 

 

The world was dark, dusty and hollow all around and above him, a bottomless body of fine sand that seemed to stretch into forever, decidedly there yet insubstantial, existing endlessly. The sturdy ground that had been anchoring his feet half a second ago had suddenly shifted and a moment later disintegrated into sand as fine and white as baker’s sugar, suctioning him in.  
  
Jongin’s whole life was flashing before his eyes, hard and fast, lungs choking on the sand flying roguishly around him as he exhaled soundless screams.  
  
Perhaps he’d been dreaming after all, because there wasn’t exactly a rational explanation for how all of this was happening.  
  
One minute he’d been holding up an antiquated blue glass jug under the light of a murky orange moon and the next he was falling and falling, never seeming to crash.  
  
He needed to stop fighting, if it truly was a dream then that meant there would be no broken bones, at least not permanently. Awareness alone gave him something of an advantage, not that he knew how lucid dreaming actually worked. But something had to work, right? He needed to stop clawing around him for something to anchor him in place. All he had to do was relax, stop fighting, take one huge breath… yes, just like that… close his eyes tightly and in no time, he’d be waking up safely in his own bed, on the other side of the continent from everyone he knew except for Chanyeol, chasing a home he’d spent his early twenties believing existed in a boy.  
  
  
  
Jongin’s phone had woken him up earlier that morning. And before Chanyeol was even done telling him where exactly to find the house in Carthage that was soon to be raided according the tip-off that Chanyeol had received, Jongin had already stumbled across the room, located his most comfortable and oldest pair of fieldwork boots, his leather bag and the keys to the old truck.  
  
Chanyeol had a way of praising him for the little things, like always being on call, that made Jongin feel a lot of things. It was a warm kind of lovely, basking in Chanyeol’s praise and gratitude. A sort of sustenance, filling up and cloaking him in so much warmth and something else he’d never tried to examine too much. All Jongin knew was it felt nice, being someone Chanyeol needed.  
  
And it certainly required some sort of urgency on his part, which is how he’d somehow managed to convince the local inspector to let him hold onto the expropriated artefacts, seeing as amongst everyone present, Jongin was the only one appropriately qualified to handle antiquated goods of such significant cultural and historical importance.  
  
  
  
The blue glass jug wasn’t anything special at first glance, but it had called to him, its yellow and turquoise stripes fraying under the dull moonlight in a way that desperately called to him to examine. Which he’d done, holding the blue glass jug up under the poor light of the moon that he didn’t remember being quite as orange and murky on his way up the hill and through the scattered ruins.  
  
“You’ve got to be kidding me!” a disgruntled voice called out from somewhere behind him.  
  
He was in a cave, of all places to wake up in, and something sharp and multi-edged was digging into his tailbone, almost negating the comfort of the fabrics and silks padding his fall. Because he’d been falling, right? A moment ago there had been nothing but dust, darkness and a bottomless pit underneath his feet.  
  
“Is this a joke? You keep me here for almost five centuries and then send a human of all things? That’s the answer? That’s my answer?” the disgruntled voice continued, seemingly addressing the cave because when Jongin sat up on his knees and turned his head to inspect his surroundings, there was no one else around except himself and the owner of the voice. A boy with unrestrained black waters inside his eyes.  
  
The boy was savagely beautiful, levitating just a few meters away from the mound of fabrics and silks Jongin had awoken on.  
  
Under the glowing lights emitted by the crystals haphazardly protruding from the cave’s high ceilings, his golden skin was bared, mostly. He was sitting with his legs folded in his lap, a necklace composed of individual glass beads carved into intricate heads with animated faces and large staring eyes hanging low on his otherwise bare chest. And from his legs, flowed bold coloured satin pants cinched at the ankles like something straight out of a fantastical period drama.  
  
Jongin’s palms itched. His throat was dry.  
  
The boy snarled when their eyes met, something impossibly animalistic and territorial.  
  
Jongin swallowed.  
  
The cave, he noticed now as his eyes quickly shuffled away from the boy’s, was multi-roomed from what he could make out from up here, almost a little too brightly lit and lavishly furnished for his mind to make sense of his current predicament.  
  
His eyes bulged out of their sockets when he held up what had been digging into his tailbone to find a blood red ruby as big as a newborn’s fist, lavishly polished and cut.  
  
That, couldn’t possibly be right.  
  
“What’s this place?” Jongin rushed out, frame staggering forward as he took in every little detail of every treasure carelessly littering the cave’s floors.  
  
In one unassuming corner, gold coins were were scattered without a care, a golden lamp or two, peeking out from perfect miniature hills formed out of sparkling sapphires. And diamonds, black and sizeable, lined the walls in dizzying symmetry.    
  
The boy narrowed his eyes, snorted as though offended at the mere idea of being addressed, and snapped right out of existence, as it were.  
  


  
  
“You don’t belong here,” came the boy’s voice right into his ear several moments later.  
  
Jongin jumped, frantically looking about him and not finding anyone there.  
  
“Look at you, jumpy as hell, unnecessarily innocent and trusting... You just fell right into their trap, didn’t you?” the disembodied voice called out from somewhere a little farther away, a violent gust of wind trailing behind it and sending Jongin tumbling down from the crest of the mount of fabrics and silks.  
  
“I hope you know that there’s no room for mistakes. Failure equals certain death in here.”  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
“Tell me if I’ve got this right,” Jongin said, gesturing vaguely towards the boy, who seemed to have grown tired of maintaining his disappearing act or holding his severe scowl in place. The boy had reappeared barely a few minutes ago, still menacingly hovering close to the crystals lining the cave’s high ceilings. A dangerous looking smile etched on his face as he casually mentioned that any false move would send all the crystals coming down.  
  
Sufficiently placated, he was a talker, Jongin had quickly learnt. He was easy enough to excite, appropriately warm when needed and surprisingly relatable once the permanent scowl dissolved into breathy giggles and curiosity.  
  
“You are a djinni, imprisoned in this cave for over five centuries---”  
  
“---almost five,” the boy-djinni corrected, gesturing encouragingly with his hand for Jongin to continue.  
  
Jongin took a deep breath, surreptitiously pinching himself in the side to confirm_ not for the first time that morning_ that this really wasn’t a dream.  
  
He blinked, breathed in deeply and nope, yeah, he definitely wasn’t dreaming any of this up.  
  
“You’re a djinni, trapped in here for almost five centuries, the blue glass jug’s some sort of a _gate_ … a uh, summoning object? At least that’s how you think I got here?” Jongin continued hesitantly, sighing heavily with absolute despair when the boy folded his arms into his terribly distracting bared chest, nodding gravely.  
  
“I’d have to examine it of course to confirm, but yes, sounds like a _gate_ to me.”  
  
It was all some type of elaborate trick of course, none of this was real. Jongin wasn’t dreaming, which meant he might’ve been hallucinating or better yet, stuck on some crackshow hidden camera tv series of sorts.  
  
Naturally, the only thing to do was look around for the camera crew and Chanyeol, of course he’d do something like this for the kicks. Of course!  
  
If Jongin really thought about it, who in their right minds called at 2am on a weekend because of some gotdamned tip off from the local police (actually, when have the police ever been anything but hostile towards the Administration of Antiquities Department?)  
  
Well, his boss, Chanyeol, for one. Chanyeol wasn't always a playfully vengeful man, but when Jongin taunted him enough, he gave back just as good, if not excessively. It certainly wasn’t the first time that Jongin had been called into work at some odd hour, but never to secure a box of 5th century Punic artefacts that’d soon be raided off some French expat’s property up in the hills overlooking the Punic port.  
  
“Ha ha, joke’s over Chanyeol , you can come out now,” Jongin scoffed, navigating through lace thin white drapes and several marble statues lining the east wing of the cave. He had enough presence of mind to note that they were breathtakingly exquisite, though mostly broken and old.  
  
The boy appeared next to him, one curious eyebrow raised as he followed Jongin’s trail through the statues.  
  
“Who’s Chanyeol?” the ‘djinni’ asked, repeating the name under his breath as though recalling a memory tied to it.  
  
“Oh, you’re really good,” Jongin said, suddenly coming to a stop and furrowing his eyebrows.  
  
“I just can’t seem to figure out how you’re flying all over the place though, where are the wires? There has to be some sort of mech…” his voice trailed off when suddenly a rich colored and patterned tapestry that’d been hanging against the wall behind him slipped underneath his feet and a moment later, he was ducking his head as he flew precariously close to the crystals lining the high ceiling.  
  
Dropping to his knees and clutching both corners of the rug with his hands, Jongin screeched.  
  
“You challenged your fate for a boy you don’t even have the guts to confess your love to?” the djinni asked, gaping incredulously up at him from down below.   
  
“H-help!” Jongin hissed, one hand helplessly reaching out to the boy, who was now standing on the ground below him, arms folded as he peered up at Jongin with self-righteous disgust.  
  
“You’re foolishly and incredibly naive. He doesn’t even see you. Not like that, you do know this?”  
  
When nothing but a pitiful sob came out of Jongin’s mouth, the djinni rolled his eyes, waving his hand dismissively. The tapestry followed the motion at a sharp angle, coming down in an instant and promptly depositing Jongin onto a pile of gold coins and trinkets that, in that moment, materialized out of nowhere.  
  
“Enough,” Jongin breathed out after a while, visibly subdued.  
  
“Enough with the flying, falling, and weirdly realistic illusory tricks. Please, enough.”  
  
Every bone in his body hurt, more than that, he was tired of making sense of where he was and everything that was happening to him. Jongin just wanted to go home and pretend this was all just one weirdly realistic, elaborate fantastical dream.  
  
“Jongin,” the djinni tested, walking tentatively towards him.  
  
“Please, I just want to wake up now. I want to go home. Please stop all of this.”  
  
“Okay,”  
  
“Okay?”  
  
“Okay,” the boy nodded, “you can go home."  
  
“How do I---” he looked desperately around him, holding onto his right arm protectively.  
  
“---where’s the exit? How do I leave?”  
  
“I don’t know,” the boy shrugged, “trapped in here for five centuries, remember? I’d be a little careful too, most of it is booby trapped.”  
  
Jongin felt himself about to cry and swallowed hard, brushing furiously at the strands of hair falling into his eyes.  
  
“I only know that if anyone’s going to get out of here it’s you, you found the _gate_ in so that means you’ll probably know the one out. You’re my answer… apparently,” the boy continued with a put upon sigh, sitting himself down on a large and plush round cushion and moving to lie across it on his stomach.  
  
“The answer is...” Jongin trailed off, confused and exasperated.  
  
“You,” the boy said matter of factly, before closing his eyes and rolling over onto his back, seemingly disaffected.  
  
Jongin bit his lip, tamping down his obvious frustration with a heavy exhale. And with a determined nod of his head, he set out to search the cave’s many partitioned rooms for a _gate_ he was fated to find, apparently.  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
Jongin realized as soon as he saw it why he’d been fated to find the _gate_. It’d taken him a couple of grueling minutes to find a door that, unlike all the others, didn’t lead to a room bursting with luxury and excess. The door wasn’t decorated with some intricate design, for one. It was plain and white, appearing where Jongin was sure hadn’t been anything before, because he’d counted and left a stark red X on each one when it had increasingly become apparent that the cave had a few tricks up its sleeves.  
  
It was almost as though it was a sentient being with a score to settle, shuffling doors around to create a labyrinth out of an otherwise simple open space.  
  
The room behind the plain white door wasn’t anything special, except the more he looked at its smooth walls and traced his boots into its ridged floors, the more it came alive with symbols and glyphs that looked like they had been there all along.  
  
Rigid standing women figures lined the walls, sacred tree motifs appearing where a second ago there had been nothing at all. All seemingly tying in together in a language he understood, intimately.  
  
  
  
Once, when he was younger, Jongin had thought that maybe he’d become a dancer. He’d believed in it enough to apply for University and enroll into Hiddingh hall, where all the cool artsy kids went.  
  
He didn’t exactly remember how he’d ended up on the university’s main campus, four suburbs over, but he still remembered the dazed blankness that washed over him when Chanyeol clumsily wiped over his favorite wine-red button up with a couple of hastily procured napkins, apologizing profusely for dropping his coffee all over Jongin.  
  
Jongin didn’t remember when or if he’d ever managed to get back to his own campus that day, after accepting Chanyeol’s offer to wash and dry his clothes while he waited, but he still remembered how majestic Chanyeol’s hair had looked. Fluffy and a dull silver, parted in the middle and falling into his eyes in bouncy waves. How Chanyeol laughed in color, bright and elaborate, shaking the earth around him as he went. Jongin didn’t remember much except that he’d kept coming back to Main Campus after that, even found an excuse to enroll for the class Chanyeol TA’d and well, perhaps that was the most defining of moments in their relationship. Because after that, not even his mother would have talked him out of it, not when Chanyeol looked at him intently, intense and painfully sincere as he breathed out praises for Jongin to bask and melt in. Not when Chanyeol declared him smart enough that it’d be such a great loss to not have someone in this line of work, with an eye for detail like Jongin’s.  
  
That was it, really, that was all it took and now he was here.  
  
Somewhere, definitely somewhere, with a boy that claimed to be older than known time, and somehow, even though Jongin hadn’t told him his name, the boy had called him by it. The djinni had confirmed what Jongin had always known, which logically, the djinni shouldn’t have known.  
  
And it was awfully final, the way that the djinni reminded him that Chanyeol didn’t see him like he wanted to be seen. Almost as though past this point, even Jongin himself wouldn’t be able to excuse his lingering feelings without at least feeling a little dirty and morally reprehensible.  
  
  
  
Recognizing a familiar motif, Jongin carelessly stepped up to the center of the room. The floors here were a little more distinct, tiled blocks fit together like a messy puzzle left incomplete. He took a step forward, missing one block and landing on the next. Just then, an inordinate number of arrows flew past him, dangerously close and scraping a thin layer of the skin of his ears.  
  
He froze in place, breathing harshly from his nose, blood thumbing wildly in his ears.  
  
“I’m alright, still alive,” he shouted, more for his own assurance than Tao’s benefit. The djinni had been obstinate about not following him through the doors, choosing instead to lounge back on his cushions, brooding over an uncontested game of go.  
  
He breathed out a prayer to no one in particular, but Chanyeol's face flashed before his eyes. Jongin was scared, it'd be stupid not to be, but he couldn't stay rooted on one spot forever.  
  
Tentatively, he shifted his weight onto his left foot, his right one finding the separating lines between the blocks and following them through until he was safely inside the next block.  
  
The room creaked, like something inside it had been awoken from a thousand year long sleep. He almost expected a heavy axe to come swinging his way.  
  
Jongin heaved out another prayer. Took another step. And then another.  
  
Two more and he was right at the center of the room.  
  
“Got you,” Jongin said with a barely there smile, fingers inquisitively tracing into the head of the bronze goat statue and righting it so it was facing backwards, in accordance with the texts he knew of.  
  
The walls yawned and somewhere behind him, he heard the djinni squealing excitedly, air parting in that distinct way Jongin now realized meant that the boy was moving through it.  
  
“You found it!” the boy exclaimed, coming to stand beside him and lifting Jongin up with his arms laced underneath Jongin’s thighs, this time. The boy whipped them around, still squealing excitedly and only letting go when Jongin couldn’t help but chuckle along.  
  
His eyes had unrestrained blackwaters inside them and for a minute, Jongin had been free falling with no intention of ever surfacing.  
  
With an uneasy grunt and a healthy amount of panic, Jongin squeezed the djinni’s shoulders and the boy dutifully set him down, eyebrows furrowing only briefly. Something in the air between them shifted then, but Jongin wasn’t bothered enough to examine why.  
  
“Please know that I hate that I’m telling you this,” the djinni suddenly groaned, wiping his hands down his face, “but I’m obligated to tell you so…” trailing off when he saw Jongin moving away from him, eyes fixated on a blue glass jug half buried in a dune of fine white sand a little ways off to their left.  
  
Before he could put his hands on it however, the blue glass jug suddenly lifted into the air at a rapid pace, freefalling to the ground in the next moment.  
  
Jongin couldn’t help the awful noise that came out of him when glass shards flew everywhere, splitting through the air around them and settling over the ground like a billowing cloak.  
  
“Why did you do that?” he shrieked, looking on incredulously as the boy rubbed his hands together triumphantly.  
  
“As I was saying, I loathe that I have to tell you this, believe me, I do. But, seeing as you’ve freed me I’m obligated to tell you my name...” the djinni groaned, continuing as though he hadn't just broken what was essentially the portal that had brought Jongin here.  
  
“...with which you may now exercise full control over me.”  
  
He hung his head to the side, bottom lip protruding in a most annoyingly adorable pout, “And as such, I am bound to you until such a time as I’ve granted three of your wishes and executed them to your de---”  
  
“You broke the gate!” Jongin shrieked.  
  
The djinni blinked, blankly.  
  
“You broke the gate, you awful awful m-djinn-man-person! Wait, what was that last part?”  
  
“I owe you three wishes. But since you already requested that I take you back home, I suppose that brings us down to two,” the djinni sighed, gesturing vaguely with his right hand.  
  
“Think carefully, be wise, and absolutely no take-backs,” he rattled off like it was a well practiced script, a little too disaffected for someone who claimed he was now bound to Jongin and virtually at his mercy, the way Jongin saw it.  
  
“Name’s Tao.”  
  
Jongin didn’t particularly appreciate the djinni’s tone, he decided.  
  
Staggering back the way they’d come, Jongin smiled languidly when he located the lounge area and promptly deposited himself on a large cushion with a heavy groan.  
  
“You’re not going to trick me that easily, Tao,” Jongin said with a tired smirk, allowing his exhaustion to ease him gently into the darkness behind his eyelids.  
  
He’d address the djinni’s tone once he no longer felt so tired, for now though, he needed to rest.  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
Djinns, he soon learnt, were no good tricksters that although being neither good nor evil, were rather committed to having a bit of ‘fun’ at everyone else’s expense. It was like in that fairytale, with the old Miller's daughter and the straw that had to be threaded into gold. All tricks and loopholes, no wish ever executed the way he'd intended.  
  
“You have to be careful, some requests are… more binding than others. Honestly, you humans never seem to understand how wishes work. Tone, will power etcetera… don’t make me go over this with you.”  
  
“What kind of silly rule is that? Listen, it can’t be a wish if I don’t explicitly call it one. You weren’t even bound to me when it happened!”  
  
Tao grinned mischievously, folding his feet into his lap lotus style and looking on nonchalantly as Jongin fought a sand dune for one of his boots.  
  
Now that the gate had been opened, they were out in the open wilderness, a sea of sand flowing in waves all around them. Somehow, where the cave had once stood, everything had remained in tact, moored from whatever else that was out there.  
  
Even in his panicked state, Jonging took it all in, breathing in the impossible beauty surrounding him like a drug he couldn’t afford to lose himself to for a beat too long.  
  
“Oh, so now you admit it happened?”  
  
“God, you’re insufferable,” Jongin hissed as he finally got all the sand out of his boot, sliding it onto his bare foot with an easy grace.  
  
He’d meant for it to hit Tao’s head, but of course Jongin had casually forgotten the part where the other was a djinni or something equally ridiculous.  
  
They had only just met, but already Jongin found him intolerable. Every minute spent with the djinni, an exercise in saintly restraint.  
  
“Okay, okay. Let’s say you did in fact grant me my first wish, yes?”  
  
Tao now lay on his side, one hand fisted underneath his neck to support his head, while he cleaned out his ear with the pinky of the other, levitating at eye level on Jongin’s right.  
  
“Why am I here instead of, you know, in my bed? What even is this place?”  
  
There was nothing but sand dunes for miles, flowing in waves like a wild white sea as the wind spread everything out, to and fro. The sun overhead was unforgiving, the heat of it seeping through the soles of his boots from the ground and leaving his feet feeling a little tender and sore.  
  
“In the Realm of the Seven Kings of course,” Tao deadpanned, like it was the silliest question he’d ever been obligated to answer, seemingly not understanding its significance.  
  
“Should I even ask who or what the Seven Kings are? Do I want to know?”  
  
The djinn shook his head frantically, eyes and cheeks blown out before he exhaled and said, “No, you’re okay. Trust me, you don’t want to know. In fact, let’s never speak of them again.”  
  
Tao’s eyes roved wildly around them, narrowed suspiciously as one arm snaked around Jongin’s shoulder almost protectively, moving them a few feet back the way they must’ve come.  
  
“Okay,” Jongin said, deciding he wasn’t curious enough to pursue that, he just wanted to go home.  
  
“You still didn’t answer me, why can’t I go home if you really did grant my first wish, as you claim?”  
  
“You are home, right where you started. Just, on the other side of it, kind of like when you toss a coin and---”  
  
“You need to make sense. My room, uh, okay! Take me to my room.”  
  
Tao blinked, and then an impish smile curled across his face.  
  
It was too late, but Jongin still jumped, lunging at him like he expected to catch his words before Tao could grab them and spurn them into a half assed unwanted reality.  
  
“Shoot!” Jongin exclaimed.  
  
“I didn’t mean to, that wasn’t a wish. Shoot, don’t act on that you sly little---”  
  
Before he could finish his sentence, the earth had shifted and they were now in a forest, seemingly bare but alive. Somewhere in its depths, there must’ve been life because he felt it, pulsing in the air around them.  
  
“You tricked me, again!” Jongin growled, pulling at his hair with manic anguish.  
  
Tao, amused but trying to keep his laughter in, slung one arm across Jongin’s shoulder and marched them along.  
  
Apparently the djinni did not value his life.  
  
“Man, you’re easy. This has got to be the most fun I’ve had in centuries. Fair warning, you’ve one more wish to go. I'd use it wisely if I were you ,” the djinn said, booping Jongin’s nose, an intolerable smirk curling his lips.  
  
Like a knee jerk reaction, Jongin lunged at him with clawed hands, only for the djinni to vanish into thin air, again.  
  
“This is not even my room, it’s a forest for crying out loud. How can it qualify as a wish fulfilled?”  
  
Jongin kicked at the forest floor in frustration, deciding a moment later to deal his intended damage on the weeds growing amok around him.  
  
The djinni reappeared somewhere in the distance, feet folded into his lap as he levitated closer to the canopy made by the trees around them.  
  
“Hey, I don’t make the rules. You must be specific otherwise I’m always going to have more fun messing around with the fine print. I’m a djinni, we’re known for this. How are you still so trusting?”  
  
“Why are we in a forest, Tao ?” Jongin groused, visibly annoyed.  
  
“Uh, probably because we’re still in the Realm of the Seven Kings? Technically, this is your room though, just not in the correct realm.”  
  
Tao had the decency to look a little sheepish as he moved to sit underneath a tree, facing Jongin with flighty eyes.  
  
“I don’t exactly know how to get you to the right one, eeh, sorry?”  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
After a painfully prolonged moment of silence and some whining from an obviously put out Tao later, Jongin finally stood up, deciding to let the weeds be as he ventured further out into the forest. The sun was waning, leaning more and more towards the west.  
  
If they were going to be stuck in the forest for a night, he needed to build a fire and at least find a tree sturdy enough to hold him as he slept. He wasn’t going to risk it in the wild, even though things had been relatively quiet the whole afternoon.  
  
As he collected dry twigs and dead leaves he could hear the djinni singing off in the distance and soon enough, Jongin found himself biting back a smile. It sounded like a drunk man’s song being sung by a stubborn five-year-old, ridiculously endearing in ways that, logically, made no sense whatsoever.  
  
When Jongin finally made it to the clearing, twigs and dead leaves in hand, Tao was perched up in one of the trees. He was levitating a few centimeters above a slender green branch, eyes closed in concentration as he belted out his song.  
  
The corners of his lips twitched and before he knew to hold it in, Jongin was laughing, dropping his bundle at his feet as he doubled over.  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
_Chanyeol never dated anyone, for as long as Jongin had known him he’d always just been alone. There was a basement level library which was also something of a museum that most people didn’t know about. If Chanyeol wasn’t answering his phone you’d always find him there. Hair a mess from being ruffled up way too frequently, eyes a little puffed out and face stiff from being held in one expression for too long._ _  
__  
__The basement level library was shared by the zoology department and theirs, every inch of it a treasure trove rich with history and culture. It was Chanyeol’s safe space. And quite inevitably, it became his. Just like every other thing Chanyeol held dear or believed in, the dingy corner in the basement level library became his too._ _  
__  
__And maybe that’s where the problem really lied, because none of it could ever really be Jongin's too. Collecting bits and pieces of things and ideas that Chanyeol held dear was like assembling scattered fragments of Chanyeol that Jongin could keep and own. A metaphor for his love, for his barely concealed possessiveness, a terrifying indulgence of his greed._ _  
__  
__And Tunis, naturally, Tunis became the grand centerpiece, with its labyrinthine of tiny pathways, cobbled alleys and glorious mosques. It’s informal flea markets selling everything from leather tote bags to orange blossom fragrance._ _  
__  
__“You’re young and good looking, don’t let it waste away down here in all this dust,” Chanyeol said as he walked towards the work area in the center of the room, pulling on his disposable gloves and adjusting his glasses on his nose._ _  
__  
__He looked his best like this, hair an ashen grey under the artificial light, a pair of prescription lenses making the rest of him scream out : long, sexy, nerd. An available, long and sexy nerd, because Chanyeol never dated, for as long as Jongin had known him, he’d always been just that. Long legged, available, sexy nerd._ _  
__  
__“Waste away, listen to you. You’re young too.”_ _  
__  
__Chanyeol had smiled then, well, it was a mischievously loaded grin, impossibly addicting and terribly short lived. He’d grinned and lifted a pair of forceps, gently picked the specimen they’d been working on and examined it under the uv light._ _  
__  
__“Oh, you know that’s kind of… not my thing. But you should really go out, I’m serious. Party with the locals, fall in love. Live some. This city is far too beautiful to always be cooped up down here.”_ _  
__  
__Down here was one of the basement wings of the Bardo museum, where all the restoration and conservation work was concentrated. It was a remarkably breathtaking upgrade from the basement level library, something that had so thoroughly consumed Chanyeol over the year and a half they’d been here together, working for the Administration of Antiquities Department. If the library had been his safe space, this was him in his element, his natural habitat._ _  
__  
__“Not your thing huh? One day you’ll have a drink with me and finally tell me what that’s all about.”_ _  
__  
__Chanyeol stopped what he was doing, smiled wide and beautiful and shrugged._ _  
__  
__“You know, the being together with someone thing.”_ _  
__  
__“Okay, that’s terribly broad, work with me here. The commitment thing, is it? Don’t tell me you’re like, one of those love and leave ‘em in the morning types,” Jongin said with a laugh that sounded horribly broken to his own ears. He was a pathetic mess, wearing his heart out on a sleeve like that._ _  
__  
__He needed to hide his fixation better._ _  
__  
__“More like, uh, just generally? The being with another body part. All of it, really.The sex thing, the commitment thing, the feelings thing. I, uh, I don’t know. I’ve just never felt the need for it,” Chanyeol said, voice becoming a little smaller and uncertain at the end._ _  
__  
__“Oh,” Jongin quite eloquently put it._ _  
__  
__“Yeah,” Chanyeol breathed out a small self conscious chuckle, immediately drawing his eyes back to his work,“Oh.”_ _  
__  
__It wasn’t too much of a set back the way Jongin saw it, how could it be? In a way, it was a lifeline and Jongin wouldn’t be who he was, terribly in it for the long haul for Chanyeol_ and god, it had been years, long miserable years_ if he didn’t grab this with every fibre in his body._ _  
__  
__Because only like this, would Chanyeol be a bit of his too._ _  
__  
__Chanyeol was many things, he belonged to a great many things, but especially the well lighted conservation wing of Bardo’s basement. In a space Jongin had collected and dubbed his, among a whole list of other things he’d similarly laid a claim to. In that space, in that incredibly beautiful tight space filled with many treasures, culture and history, Chanyeol couldn’t escape being his too._  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
“Does Chanyeol know that…” Tao had been talking non-stop for the past however long it had been and Jongin was getting worn out. He tried his best to tune him out but the djinni had long since discovered the magic word for getting his attention, it was hopeless. He was hopeless.  
  
It was a little annoying, how Chanyeol still had so much power over him, even in a different realm, and in absentia.  
  
Over time it had become something of a pavlovian reaction, anything to do with Chanyeol made him incredibly attentive, an impossible warmth crawling up his veins ‘til his head was filled with nothing but heady chemicals and an impossible yearning.  
  
The sun was now setting in the distance, an unmistakable calm falling onto the forest that belied the life coming to full attention inside it.  
  
A little more and it would be dark enough that they wouldn’t be able to see each other, which suited Jongin just fine.  
  
Tao was incredibly chatty, but not in any of the ways that made Chanyeol his favourite person to be around. He was like an incessant itch just below the skin of your palms, paying attention to it would always make it worse.  
  
“You know, you could’ve just asked me to preserve the light for you. I can do that, I’m a djinni. Djinn-folk can do anything. I could even make a shelter for you if you wish,” Tao perked up suddenly, sitting up and looking worryingly animated and determined.  
  
“What do you want, a bungalow? A mansion, no, you look a little regal. Only the best for you, alright, what d’you say? A palace?”  
  
“Ha ha, very funny,” Jongin laugh-said and almost immediately realized that Tao hadn’t been trying to trick him into a wish, but to speak.  
  
The djinni in question, suddenly moved towards him, excitement and victory overwhelming his eyes.  
  
They burned hot, the look of them, like Jongin was looking directly into the pulp of the sun. Alive and liquid, a remarkable sight to behold.  
  
“You know you’ll have to do it eventually, I can’t be bound to you forever.”  
  
Jongin smirked wildly, but said nothing, which had all the effect of making Tao look a lot more panicked than he already did.  
  
He wasn’t actively thinking it, but a part of his mind vaguely acknowledged that Tao’s wide eyed look was kind of… compelling.  
  
“That was not a challenge!” the djinni shrieked, rounding on Jongin and grabbing him by the arm.  
  
The black waters in his eyes seemed to roar and for a minute Jongin was paralysed, his heart thudding in his chest like there was a riotous stampede in progress right at its centre.  
  
Tao narrowed his eyes, eyebrows furrowing in passing confusion as he let go of Jongin’s arm like it had burnt to touch. He looked a little too small like this, even with the few inches he had on Jongin, even with the savagely beautiful sharpness of his face.  
  
“Don’t look at me like that,” he said, voice barely above a whisper.  
  
“Don’t look at me like some wild thing to be feared.”  
  
“What? I -- no -- it’s,” Jongin sputtered, feeling a little lost and small himself. He hadn’t meant to be so afraid, he wasn’t really. But Tao was a whole ‘nother being, who played by a different set of rules and moral code. It was difficult, if he were being completely honest with himself, to not be at least some kind of overwhelmed and wary around him.  
  
“It’s just a lot to take in. You, all this, I...” Jongin said apologetically, gesturing vaguely to the space around them.  
  
The air around them suddenly felt like static, gravity holding him down just a little heavier.  
  
Jongin blinked once and the sun was completely gone. Twice and a part of the sky too was gone, along with it something else quite important, swimming at the edges of his memory, a little too far out of reach.  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
The first couple of times he’d passed through here, there hadn’t been a plain white door leading out to a mostly empty room. He was sure, he’d marked and counted all the doors.  
  
But the cave seemed to have a mind of its own too, swapping and replacing doors as and when it pleased.  
  
The room wasn’t anything special, except the more he looked at its smooth walls and traced his boots into its ridged floors, the more it came alive with indentations, symbols and glyphs that looked like they’d been there all along.  
  
The air around Jongin had a static quality to it, like the cold calm after a storm but just before another.  
  
He ran his fingers through the glyphs with his eyes closed and his mind seemed to provide a long forgotten memory of how the rest of the text ought to go.  
  
Something felt a little off, but he couldn’t tell exactly what.  
  
He lifted one foot and just before he let it rest on a distinct patch of the floor, his muscles stiffened. A moment later, an arrow grazed the skin of his ear, a lock of his hair sweeping to the ground soundlessly.  
  
There were words on his tongue before his mouth was even open. They were familiar words, said more for his own benefit, than to assure anyone else.  
  
Taking care to watch his next step, he pressed on until he was in the middle of the room, the bronze goat statue with its head facing the wrong direction resolutely within reach.  
  
“Got you,” Jongin said when his hands found the head of the goat and righted it so that it would be facing backwards as per his knowledge of Punic mythology.  
  
The niggling feeling that something wasn’t quite right kept coming at him in waves. It was like the earth had swayed just a little further to the right but kept wobbling off its axis all the same. Inside his mind, there was an urge to remember gushing wildly, bits and pieces of a hastily thrown together past reflecting into his present like an unfocused mirrored image.  
  
From somewhere behind him, he could hear the djinni approaching, slowly, cautiously like he was cornering a small and wounded animal.  
  
Jongin’s heart beat a little faster, his lungs constricting inside his ribcage.  
  
“Tao,” Jongin breathed out, just as the cave’s walls receded into nothingness and barren land began to stretch out from every which direction around them. The space where the cave had been, moored to form an impossible island of unfamiliar necessities and treasures.  
  
The djinni titled his head to the side and frowned.  
  
Jongin was a little convinced that Tao could read his mind, and maybe see into his past too. What exactly were the limits of a djinni’s powers anyway?  
  
Turning back on his feet, Tao headed towards the large cushions which, along with all the other treasures of the cave, had maintained their position while everything else had disintegrated into nothingness.  
  
“You’re not supposed to know that,” Tao said as he proceeded to plop himself onto one, throwing his feet up to lay on the smaller sized cushions slightly towards the left.  
  
“You get more interesting by the minute, _human_ , don’t you just?”  
  
“Jongin,” he insisted, a little miffed at how the word human coming from Tao’s mouth sounded like a dirty thing. For all his talk about wishes, willpower and being bound, the djinni continuously proved to be much too haughty for his station.  
  
Tao continued to look at him with unmasked amusement, remaining  otherwise pretty unphased. Jongin wished he could do something reckless like order him into eternal servitude or some--- no, this was all wrong.  
  
Time was flowing all wrong.  
  
Tao was a djinni bound to his service. How had he come to know that? They hadn’t had this conversation yet. Not really. Yet he remembered it somewhat clearly and in a different order, like a jumbled dream that refused to be laid to rest.  
  
There was a flurry of memories coming to the forefront of his mind, none of which he remembered actually living. Not five minutes ago, not last night or the night before that one.  
  
They felt old and seasoned, like they were something that had probably occurred about a few weeks or months ago.  
  
Only, a few weeks or months ago Jongin hadn’t known a Tao at all. Just last night alone, he’d left the museum at around 9pm, after trying and failing to convince Chanyeol to go home early and rest for a change.  
  
Jongin had two wishes remaining. He didn’t know what he’d done to deserve them, but his mind kept supplying that he still had two remaining wishes to ask of the djinni. Tao.  
  
The boy was a djinni, impish and bursting to the brim with dissent.  
  
Jongin had been tricked into recklessly using his second wish, now that he was really thinking about it.  
  
He only had one wish remaining, with his second being deemed one because of the power of intent and will behind words or something ridiculous like that. It hadn’t yet happened in this current flow of time, but he clearly remembered it happening before, sometime, somewhere.  
  
All still in a different order.  
  
He had found the gate, somewhere, sometime before this and Tao had said something stupid, so he’d thrown his boot at him.  
  
No, that couldn’t be right.  
  
Tao had tricked him into a second wish and Jongin had thrown his boot at him, was it?  
  
Nothing felt right. Yet when he pinched himself in the side, the pain felt raw and real. Just right, like all pain was supposed to feel.  
  
Something had changed in the flow of time, somewhere, a barely noticeable shift that had skewed reality and changed everything at seismic proportions. Was time supposed to repeat itself so much?  
  
Could it be broken into bits that could be shuffled and replaced in a different order depending on where the starting line was set? In this realm, did time even flow in a coherent manner? Sequentially, in a way that made sense and dictated a state of order to which all things inanimate or corporeal were bound?  
  
Jongin needed a moment to process everything he knew, but more pressingly, Jongin needed time to stop playing around him in dizzying circles about him.  
  
“This might sound a little strange,” Jongin said, shaking his head briefly as he came to an abrupt stop in front of the djinni.  
  
He’d called the djinni Tao, and it had been the most natural thing, calling him that.  
  
Jongin didn’t remember exchanging names with the ...Tao, but for some reason the name had slipped so easily from his tongue.  
  
There was a significant familiarity in the way that Tao looked up at him, languidly, sleepy eyes tracing the length of Jongin’s body until their eyes met.  
  
The warmth of the desert was suddenly unbearable.  
  
“Just now, how exactly did I know your name?” he inquired, suddenly more alert and panicked than he’d been before.  
  
“Why do I feel li--  when I was looking for a way out earlier-- Tao, what is this? What’s going on?”  
  
“Huh” Tao said thoughtfully, his eyes fluttering closed in a way that shouldn’t be as captivating as it was.  
  
The skin in between his eyebrows was pinched tight in mild irritation, and Jongin vaguely sensed that he should at least be a little afraid, but that would be a terrible idea too.  
  
“Something weird is going on here, I have memories of things I don’t--”  
  
“You’re really different huh?” Tao said as he sat up, still looking just a little bored and maybe a lot more annoyed than he’d been a few seconds ago.  
  
“--remember doing, wait. What’s that supposed to mean?”  
  
Jongin was definitely missing something.  
  
“Alright, fine. Enough with the games, I underestimated you it seems. Here,” Tao said, stretching his hand out for Jongin to take.  
  
Jongin looked at the outstretched hand with suspicion, unconsciously taking one step back for every two forward that Tao took.  
  
“Come on, I’m bored and we’ve been on this for weeks now. Time to go home.”  
  
Tao took three more steps forward, held Jongin’s hand in his own and pulled him closer, his free arm loosely draping around Jongin’s waist.  
  
The back of Jongin’s hand brushed against the jewellery piece hanging from Tao’s neck and then a patch of incredibly firm and bared distracting chest. The eyes on the individual glass heads hanging loose from the piece of jewellery seemed a little more animated up close like this, each one telling a different story.  
  
Jongin dragged his eyes up Tao’s chest, his adorned neck and then upwards towards his lips, where they lingered for a few seconds too long before he consciously dragged them up again to meet Tao’s own.  
  
He gulped, no longer feeling the ground underneath his legs and not knowing whether it was because he was free falling into those murky pools again or just levitating in place.  
  
It was neither.

  
“Hold on tight, and whatever you do, don’t let go,” Tao said, eyes shining with ever present mischief and something else Jongin didn’t have enough presence of mind to pick out, because suddenly the world was dim and perhaps a little too blue, moving forward very fast and past him

 


	2. Chapter 2

  

 Tao was a purist.  
  
He came from a long line of ancient as time djinn-folk who were purists, which was not to say there was ever any pressure on his part to become one as well. It had simply happened quite naturally, well, that’s if you discounted ‘the ex’ who… Tao sighed, squeezing Jongin against him just a little tighter and shaking his head to dispel his thoughts.  
  
He wasn’t supposed to think of that, not right now, or ever.  
  
It was over and he was fine, they were done.  
  
The couple of centuries of _house arrest_ had been enough to sufficiently exhaust that line of thought and he was the better for it, he hoped.  
  
Point was, he was something of a purist, naturally. Attraction to other aware, semi-godly beings was one thing, but a human? That was just ridiculous.  
  
Granted Jongin wasn’t what he’d been ‘taught’ to expect from a mere human.  
  
Tao didn’t have much to go on except for Baekhyun’s tales, which was as trusted a source as one could go, however quite taken to hyperbole the other was.  
  
The fact was, ordinary djinn-folk didn’t fraternize with humans with as much frequency as Baekhyun did, so if he claimed all humans were unseeing, then it had to be that.  
  
Except, Jongin was nothing like human-folk were meant to be.  
  
Under normal circumstances, not even one of the Seven Kings could tell when Tao messed around with the flow and ebb of time unless he wished it so.  
  
And for the most part, Jongin hadn’t noticed much, not really.  
  
Tao had made them relive the same day for weeks and it had been fun while it lasted. It was after all his favourite trick.  
  
It’d been awhile since he’d had that much fun at anyone’s expense, because even before the _house arrest,_ Sehun and Baekhyun had become immune to his _rapter_ . Somewhere along the line they’d learnt how to tell whenever Tao manipulated their cognition of time, and playtime had never been the same again.  
  
And really, what good was a djinni if he couldn’t have a bit of fun at everyone’s expense?  
  
Jongin was a human, and for all intents and purposes humans were unseeing, a bit ‘special’ if you will.  
  
Yet, Jongin had hesitated in the front of a bare wall until a plain white door had appeared, closed his eyes and had still known where to find the _gate_? He’d gone as far as calling out to Tao by name when, going by the rational flow of the original events, Jongin was only supposed to know Tao’s name much, much later.  
  
  
  
Somewhere in the continuum, their course abruptly dipped and the world wasn’t as dim anymore.  
  
Jongin’s mouth dropped open, his eyes bulging into saucers as wispy purple and pink aurora surrounded them.  
  
Tao found himself, not for the first time, acting out of the ordinary, slowing down their passage if only to preserve the look of sheer wonder on Jongin’s face. There was something about this human, that made Tao want to churn out time at a slower pace so he wouldn’t have to miss a thing, not even the flutter of Jongin’s eyelashes when he blinked.  
  
It was a terribly disconcerting line of thought.  
  
He wasn’t supposed to be this person, Tao was a purist, he staunchly reminded himself.  
  
The aurora didn’t phase him, he’d done this, moving through time and space for as long as he could remember. None of it was new and yet somehow, seeing the aurora reflected inside of Jongin’s eyes took his breath away.  
  
A run through space that would normally take seconds was taking minutes and Tao just couldn’t bring himself to look away.  
  
He wasn’t paying attention, he didn’t normally need to, but perhaps this time he should’ve. Because something suddenly cracked in the space around them like a bull whip, and it was all the warning he got before his _rapter_ became turbulent, whipping them in every which direction until it eventually spit them back into the desert where they had started.  
  
When he opened his eyes, he felt a little dizzy. The world was spinning wildly around him and all he could register was that his arms were empty where Jongin should’ve been.  
  
“Tao,” came a shrill cry from somewhere in the distance only a moment later.  
  
Tao couldn’t tell exactly how far Jongin was because his ears felt like they’d been submerged in water for too long, but the human couldn’t have been too far off.  
  
“Tao, where are you?”  
  
Still feeling a little dizzy, Tao shakily got back up onto his feet, following the voice with an urgency his body didn’t seem to understand the need for at this moment.  
  
Jongin wasn’t far, as it turned out. He could see him in the distance, head pressed against the trunk of a cool palm tree in an almost serene reverence. And a little further to the left, crawling towards him with alarmed eyes. A little further still, Jongin was running towards him, screaming out something that Tao couldn’t quite make out in the roaring wind.  
  
In fact, there were four more of him all around, crawling or running towards Tao as though there was something pursuing Jongin.  
  
It was as though Tao was back in the cave, still foolishly thinking he could find a way out and shorten his sentence when the terms of his _house arrest_ had expressly stated that, other than the answer, there was no other way out.  
  
It was when the sand started to reflect too much light into his eyes, almost as though it were glass, that Tao realised what was happening.  
  
And just as quickly, he saw Jongin, his Jongin, lying prone on the ground a few feet away from him, in a space where the sand sizzled and crackled as it slowly turned into glass right before his eyes.  
  
Today of all days, this was happening. Just when Tao had been recently freed from the cave, after so many centuries.  
  
It was happening.  
  
The ground underneath where Jongin lay was giving way under him, a field of sharp edged glass crystals forming all around them.  
  
He didn’t have enough time to think it through, leaping almost instantly towards Jongin and grabbing him by the feet just as the ground finally plunged, opening up to impossible plumes of thick red and white smoke that made it difficult to see around them.  
  
Pinching his eyes together firmly, Tao clenched his hands around Jongin’s ankles a little tighter, gritting his teeth as he pulled them both into the open air where the smoke hadn’t yet reached.  
  
  
  
  
  
“If I make it out alive, I’m quitting my job and going back home, home ,” Jongin grumbled as soon as they’d safely landed. The plumes of smoke were still coming out from the open chasm in the earth, covering the field of crystals in an impenetrable red and white coloured shroud.  
  
“Are you okay? Does it hurt, anywhere?” Tao rushed out, taking a knee in front of Jongin’s prone and heaving form and beginning to inspect him for injuries.  
  
“I’m fine,” Jongin said.  
  
The human waved his hand dismissively, covering his eyes with the back of the other.  
  
“Just need a minute to catch my breath, is all.”  
  
Tao bit back a tiny smile, falling back on his bottom with a relieved sigh.  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
They were lying side by side, shoulders brushing only slightly under the shed of a makeshift shelter. The wind had picked up all of a sudden and Tao suspected that a storm was coming their way. He felt tired and a little out of touch with his _rapter_ since it had spit them out in the wrong place. It wasn’t something he was used to but he figured it made sense, five centuries out of commission must’ve impacted him in some way.  
  
Presently, there were bigger issues to worry about besides a possible sandstorm or being lost out in the desert with a dysfunctional _rapter_. They were still very much within the vicinity of the crystal field, which was still shrouded in thick red and white smog. The whole area radiated too much heat to not be a dragon’s cave, and dragons as a rule, didn’t get along with Tao’s kind. Dragons were rigid and law abiding folk, always following everything by the book where djinni’s were, if he were being honest, nothing more than glorified imps. Their species rarely ever got along, which was saying something, considering he’d dated a dragon before.  
  
“What happens if a storm catches us out here?”  
  
Jogin was turned onto his side, eyes squinted protectively as they traced Tao’s face. His gaze alone, felt too warm.  
  
Jongin’s hand slinked into Tao’s hair, which most likely looked like a hornet’s nest by now, running gentle fingers through it to dislodge the dirt that had settled there. Tao didn’t think Jongin realised just how intimate the gesture was, or how close they were, cramped together under a flimsy piece of corrugated iron leaning against a rock boulder. A tight fit in an incredibly small space.  
  
“Then we burrow deeper and hope this flimsy mess won’t fly away,” Tao said, eyes fluttering closed without meaning to. His muscles, he realised now as they all at once became pleasurably slack, had been tensed enough to ache.  
  
As Jongin’s fingers grazed closer to his scalp, Tao hummed contentedly, leaning in so that the human wouldn’t have to strain to get to the nape of his neck.  
  
“ Tao ,”  
  
He was feeling too relaxed, he realised, his eyelids becoming too heavy to lift open.  
  
Tao hummed in acknowledgement, turning on his side so that he too was facing Jongin, leaning even closer into the human’s ministrations.  
  
“Where do you live? Is your world just one long desert and that’s it or do you have houses or something?”  
  
Tao grunted, feeling too lazy to open his mouth and explain. It would be so much easier if everyone was like Lu Han_ who apart from Baekhyun, was one of the more understanding of the Seven_ but then again, it was specifically because Lu Han was Lu Han, that Tao had ended up in trouble with the Seven in the first place.  
  
“Answer me,” Jongin whined, petulantly.  
  
“Tao,” the human said after a reasonable pause, kicking Tao in the shin with very little remorse.  
  
“Alright, no need to be violent, jeez!”  
  
Jongin squeezed in closer, his lower lip jutting out in a manner that Tao would’ve found very amusing if it hadn’t derailed his thoughts and declared an unofficial war against his sanity, altogether.  
  
Tao didn’t know how or when, but something between the two of them had clearly changed. The human had become a little more clingy and although he wasn’t as chatty as Tao was used to, Jongin didn’t seem to mind that side of Tao’s anymore. In fact, here they were, lying side by side and facing each other, the human actively encouraging Tao to talk his ear off like they’d known each other for centuries.  
  
Tao wasn’t ashamed to readily admit that he could easily get used to this.  
  
“What kind of a silly question is that anyway? Of course we have homes,” Tao said, taking a meaningful pause as he jostled Jongin's arm in revenge.  
  
“Your world is obviously one huge desert, that’s why you’re asking. Right?”  
  
Of course Tao knew that this wasn’t true. Although he’d never been to the human world himself, what kind of a self respecting djinni would he be if he didn’t know everything there was to know about everything?  
  
“No, but, where does it end? Does it even… end?”  
  
Jongin whined, again with the pout.  
  
Only briefly, very, very briefly, Tao wondered how Jongin’s bottom lip would feel and taste if he were to press in a little closer, not too much, no. Just a little, and then suc--  
  
“Ouch, what’s with all the abuse?”  
  
“Pay me some attention, you’re zoning out,” Jongin groused.  
  
Tao couldn’t help but laugh at that. It was a surprisingly endearing side to him, and Tao couldn’t deny that he was feeling greedy any longer. A little greedy and maybe just this side of needy.  
  
“It ends where it ends. Most djinn-folk and other magick folk stay in towns and cities but I don’t know, I kind of prefer it out here. You can do what you want and there aren’t a lot of people to judge you for it. Plus, the caves around here are quite airy and spacious, I like the sort of rustic feel about them too, I guess?”  
  
“You live in an actual cave?” Jongin gaped, the surprise on his face mildly amusing.  
  
“You found me in an _actual_ cave, I mean, it wasn’t exactly my house. But you looked right at home when you weren’t busy freaking out or looking for an exit?”  
  
“What do you mean, that was a house? How?" Jongin asked, eyebrows furrowed in that distractingly attractive way of his. Which, how and why was it deemed necessary? Also, by which god?  
  
“Are all humans generally slow on the catch up like you are or is that just a Jongin-specific thing?”  
  
Jongin huffed, honest to god huffed and at this point Tao couldn’t deny it anymore. Something was happening between them and it was scary. Not by a lot, just a little. It was new and it was shiny and his stomach was feeling tight and fluttery all of a sudden. He hadn’t felt like that in ...that alone, was too scary a thought to trace down, he abruptly decided.  
  
“It’s quiet,” Jongin said, body perking up in a way that suggested he was about to move.  
  
“Huh? Wait, Jongin, don't-”  
  
In the end, the storm hadn’t come at all, but something much, much worse, considering.  
  
The impenetrable wall of red and white smog had cleared up, and in its place the field of crystals had remained. Only, right at its center stood the worst possible way Tao’s day could’ve turned out.  
  
Before he’d even realised it, Jongin was standing among the crystals, just a few paces away from Yifan. Yifan, in all black from head to toe, like he needed anything more than just his face to make anyone piss their pants.  
  
The two of them hadn’t exactly parted on the best of terms and a lot of it was Tao’s fault, he knew that, but his protective instincts didn’t seem to care.  
  
Without really thinking, Tao had swiftly landed himself in between the two, his body essentially a shield should the dragon try anything funny.  
  
“Woah, okay, what’s going on?”  
  
Jongin was foolishly walking up towards them, his boots clacking on the glass as he navigated through the menacing crystals protruding from the ground.  
  
Yifan’s eyebrows were furrowed, big and scary looking as was the default. A furious cloud of red and white smoke was coming out of his nose and a little too from his ears.  
  
It was a sight as beautiful as it was terrifying.  
  
Technically they were on the dragon’s turf, they were the ones intruding. Tao should’ve known better than to take shelter anywhere close to a suspected dragon’s cave, but the wind had picked up without warning, and they’d both been too tired for anything else. And now they were here, facing an ancient fire breathing dragon that Tao had once loved and hurt in equal measure.  
  
“Jongin stay back,” Tao hissed, feeling the human curling into him from behind. The tension between him and Yifan was palpable, neither willing to speak or accuse the other. They just stood there, shoulders squared and eyebrows furrowed, eyes on the alert just in case the other initiated an attack.  
  
“Tao,” Jongin said, his hand snaking into Tao’s clenched palm and forcing him to relax. Just as quickly, his _rapter_ vibrated inside him and Tao heaved out a relieved sigh, leaping into it with one singular thought pressing heavily on his mind.  
  
He had to get Jongin someplace safe.  


 

His _rapter_ was so out of whack that it only took them a little further into the desert, spitting them right back out like the taste of them was too much to handle on its palate  
  
“I don’t see your friend’s place,” Jongin complained, dusting his pants off and then taking each one of his boots off, tipping the bit of sand in them back into the desert.  
  
“Or any caves for that matter, you’re sure we’re in the right place?”  
  
“I’m exhausted,” Tao grumbled back, making no move to get up from where he’d tumbled and landed when his dysfunctional _rapter_ had spit them out.  
  
“Wait, is this one of those situations where you say something completely unuseful like ‘it’s my friend’s house, just on the other side’? Because, so help me, I will fight you right now.”  
  
Tao was exhausted beyond belief, with very little control over his limbs, let alone the _rapter_. He could hear it thrumming inside his veins, could feel the static of it zapping in his brain, yet he’d never felt more out of touch with it. He felt a little helpless, just a permissible fraction of what he’d felt under _house arrest._ Because nothing could ever compare to that, not when he could still feel it active within him, not when he had the human for company.  
  
It wasn’t exactly something he wanted to dwell on either. So far, he’d cleverly dodged all of Jongin’s questions regarding his _house arrest._ Especially the matter of why there’d been a need for it in the first place.  
  
It was a matter of pride, he told himself. Although, deep down, he suspected there may have been other reasons why he didn’t want Jongin to know.  
  
“Someone’s coming,” Jongin said, moving away from Tao like the encounter with Yifan and his crystal field hadn’t taught him anything at all. Were humans generally so rash and imperceptive?  
  
“Hey, Tao, look. It’s a travelling party. We should ask for a ride, come.”  
  
It was a small travelling party, twelve camels, each one with its own rider and then a few more, pulling a wagon that looked like it probably contained smuggled magical objects and, or people. Tao wasn’t sure whether his bearings were right, but he’d suspected they were in Red Country much, much earlier. The travelling party was exactly what he’d needed to confirm it.  
  
Red Country was no man’s land, above ground and anywhere else that wasn’t the cave dwellings and their complex underground tunneling system. The area was infamous for its bandits, and a lawless culture that was considered a little too much even by the standards of the general population living out on the outskirts, which said a lot.  
  
Small travelling parties like these usually travelled with the wind, callous storms tearing everything apart and ravaging every bit of remaining life as they went. It was terrible magick, old and sinister with no intentions of ever dying out.  
  
“Need a ride?” the one at the front of the party said, a woman with surprisingly soft features where everything else about her was hard or resolutely neither, like some god.  
  
“Nope, we’re good.”  
  
“Yes, thank god!”  
  
Tao turned to glare at Jongin, who in turn was gaping at him, incredulously.  
  
“What do you mean no? We’ve been suck out here for who knows how long. Of course we need it,” Jongin whined and Tao rolled his eyes, ignoring Jongin as he stepped in front of him so that the human was shielded out of the woman’s view.  
  
A familiar figure stepped down from one of the other camels, delicate black robes flowing wildly in the wind, head wrapped up in a scarf so that only his eyes were on show. Apart from the woman, who was dressed in form fitting layers and polished armour, everyone else was similarly clad.  
  
Tao frowned, his lips twitching nervously as the figure approached.  
  
Two more people dismounted their camels, approaching Jongin and Tao with a terribly menacing gait.  
  
Those eyes, the delicately intricate cut of them, the flawless patch of creamy alabaster skin that was exposed…Tao personally knew one too many Kings to not be able to tell them apart from mere djinn.  
  
“So, you found someone to let you out,” said Lu Han, because of course it was Lu Han. Five centuries back, it had been Lu Han too.  
  
Tao winced, only belatedly remembering that he had to be careful with his thoughts. Think carefully or think nothing at all. After all, his thoughts alone had once upon a time been deemed motive enough.  
  
Lu Han tsked, hands sagely folded behind his back as he appraised the two, circling them like they were cornered prey.  
  
“Look, man, I don’t want any trouble. Just trying to get home, is all,” Tao entreated, just a little short of downright grovelling. The armoured woman cackled, a merciless jarring sound.  
  
Tao, shoved Jongin behind him, keeping him in place with a firm hand on one of his biceps.  
  
“And what do we have here? Hello. Who might you be?” Lu Han said, like he didn’t already know, presenting his hand like he expected them to both kneel and kiss it. Out here in lawless country, Lu Han expected them to kneel.  
  
Tao internally scoffed, incredulous. Which, again, big mistake.  
  
It wasn’t a lot of times, but sometimes Tao wondered what it would be like living in a society without magick. Where everyone was just plain and ordinary, where no one had some special _quirk_ or the other. Where the people were not ruled by seven glorified overloads that everyone widely and unquestioningly accepted as the Kings. Because sometimes his society sucked, but more than anything, people and their _quirks_ sucked. Specifically, Lu han and his exceeding ability to use his mind beyond normal and acceptable limits sucked. Ass.  
  
Sure, it was pretty cool that he could move around shit without having to pull out a ready-to-go scroll from his robes and soundlessly chanting a spell first, but for the most part Lu Han’s _quirk_ really sucked. Balls.  
  
And perhaps that’s what made him appropriately suited for his position as one of the Seven bullies, uh, kings.  
  
“Are we in trouble?” Jongin asked gently behind him, his voice low enough for just Tao to pick out, except none of that detail ever mattered where Lu Han was involved.  
  
“Trouble? A bit, I’m afraid. You see, there is a Constitution, to which everyone pledges and are in turn bound. There are rules and laws that are meant to be followed,” he took a significant pause, cold eyes trained on Tao, unblinkingly.  
  
“Everything and everyone is bound by law in one form or the other and yet here we are.”  
  
“Here we are?”  
  
“Yes, here we are, having to hunt you two down because for some funny reason--”  
  
“ _Feels_ ,” the androgynous woman coughed out, and one of the party bit back their  laughter, although Tao couldn’t exactly tell which one because: standard issue desert mafia regalia.  
  
“Amber,” one of the two who were flagging Lu Han on either side warned, a firm but gentle voice leaving room for no negotiation. She was dressed in black flowing robes, two machetes peeking out from behind her where they were fastened to the belt holding her robes in place by the waist. Tao suspected she was one of the sister Kings, known for their sword dance, a beautiful, frightful thing.  
  
The three sisters, however, were said to never leave the Temple, unless some grave matter had to be promptly and efficiently dealt with. Tao hoped against hope, that his increasing collection of sins were not reaching worryingly ‘grave’ levels too fast.  
  
“-- Tao hasn’t fulfilled his obligatory three wishes or filed the corresponding paperwork with Home Affairs,” Lu Han explained, finishing off with a beleaguered sigh.  
  
Cold and distant like this, Tao could easily forget that this was his best friend’s lover. Someone he’d been unfortunate enough in this lifetime to see, hear and catch in strictly non-PG situations_ on Tao’s own personal couch_ on more than one occasion. On even more occasions, in his open plan kitchen, unashamed and staunchly unapologetic. Honestly, fuck that guy. For all he cared, Lu Han could go right ahead and hear that thought too and choke.  
  
“And apparently you,” he continued, stabbing his index finger in Jongin’s direction. His lips curled up with amusement, smug and challenging as he met Tao’s hard gaze.  
  
“...like it here, _like_ him, so you haven’t exactly been in any rush to make your wish now, have you?”  
  
Jongin spluttered, but otherwise made no move to deny the loaded accusation. It was honestly too much information to process, considering where they were and with whom.  
  
Tao’s hand trailed down Jongin’s arm, loose and teasing without meaning to until it reached his wrists, before wrapping tightly and squeezing once, reassuringly. Of what he needed to reassure Jongin, Tao didn’t wish to examine right this minute.  
  
There were more pressing matters at hand.  
  
Jongin burrowed into him even more, as though he fully intended to find an opening through his flesh and slink right through it. Pressed together like this, Tao could feel a slight tremble bounce off of Jongin’s skin and onto his. It sent a cold shiver up his spine and his _rapter_ hummed. A little more and it buzzed, a little more still and it was all static inside his head.  
  
Tao closed his eyes, reflexively drawing Jongin closer to himself and instead of leaping right into it,  he let it wash over him like he was drowning and no longer willing to fight.  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
“This is ...new,” Sehun said from his dinner table where he sat perched on top of a low padded bench, long bold coloured robes flowing magnificently about him as he disinterestedly popped two grapes into his mouth.  
  
Tao and Jongin landed in his living room with a crush, wildly tumbling across the smooth marble floors until they hit the wall on the far right.  
  
Five centuries was a long time to spend without the full use of his powers, but this was just too sloppy and Sehun was undeniably having a field day.  
  
“Miss me?” Tao said, brushing his satin pants down and stretching a hand out for Jongin to take.  
  
“I’d say, you don’t seem like you missed me enough. Who’s your new friend? A _human_ , really?”  
  
Sehun smirked, even as he approached Tao, leaning in to brush their lips together and parting his own to welcome Tao’s tongue.  
  
Beside them, Jongin gasped softly, fidgeting, but otherwise making no move to step away.  
  
Tao felt like he was missing something, fixing his eyes on Jongin questioningly, but the human simpered and looked away. And the question was momentarily forgotten.  
  
Slowly, like he regretted it already, Sehun stepped back, folding his hands in front of his chest with one eyebrow raised.  
  
“I, uh, well… you know how summoning object usually go, the terms of my _house arrest,_ etcetera.”  
  
“Not that I’ve ever pissed off any of the Seven enough to warrant a house arrest, but do go on,” Sehun said, intense gaze sizing up Jongin.  
  
Tao would argue that ‘pissing off’ one of the Seven became an awfully grey area and terribly subjective if you were fucking one, but he wasn’t willing to bring up Lu Han just as yet.  
  
Tao’s flitting eyes darted around Sehun’s cave, hoping to find some sort of distraction. The cave looked pretty much how he remembered it five centuries back, except for Jongin, beautiful and absolutely ruined, now leaning against its walls like he was the key decor piece from which everything else flowed.  
  
It was distracting enough, for the both of _them_ , Tao noticed.  
  
“Just how d’you do that?” Jongin asked after a while, saving Tao from further digging his hole.  
  
Sehun groaned, abruptly wrenched out of his Jongin induced trance.  
  
Jongin was now crouching, one of his hands placed on top of a knee, the other against the stone walls. Tao’s hand had been brushed away in favour of anchoring himself like this, as though he didn’t quite trust the earth to not give way underneath him one more time, just for the kicks.  
  
Sehun’s eyebrows by now, were completely buried somewhere beyond his hairline. Tao deliberately ignored it, reaching for both of Jongin’s hands and jerking him upright so he’d have no choice but to test the stability of his own feet.  
  
Jongin wobbled a little, leaning into Tao and holding on tightly until he could trust his feet to hold him in place.  
  
“What. The hell. Was that?”  
  
_Oh god, don’t …_  
  
It was too late. Any minute now Sehun would--  
  
“You told me it was dangerous!”  
  
Ah, there it was.  
  
Sehun was furious, Tao didn’t have to look to know that much.  
  
In a moment, he’d cornered Tao into the wall, rage coming off him in waves as Jongin’s questions mostly went ignored.  
  
“Uh, can we possibly do this later? Maybe give Jongin here a bed to lay down on first?” Tao reasoned, already moving towards where he knew the guest room to be, an undeterred Sehun hot on his heels.  
  
“Why does the human get to _rapt_ and I can’t?”  
  
“Tao--"  
  
“Look, there was no other way. He’s a little... weird, I needed some advice and we ran into a bit of a, uh, situation. It couldn’t wait,” Tao explained, dismissively.  
  
“Tao--"  
  
“Bullshit, we have a whole connecting tunnel system for literally everything and fine they’re stuffy and sometimes not too well lit, but I’m still calling bullshit because I know for a fact that you received the rug that--”  
  
“You don’t get it, he’s a little _weird_. He sees things. Humans don’t _see_ things right? It’s impossible… tell me I’m making a big deal out of nothing?”  
  
“--I sent after you tried to appeal your sentence and that completely bomb-- how weird are we talking here? What did he _see_? Tao?”  
  
“ Tao!”  
  
“I didn’t tell him my name, I mean I did, but then I used the _rapter_ … went right to the beginning and relived it over and over, you know how fun it usually is right? You remember?”  
  
-God, he was going to throw up-  
  
Tao was pacing as he babbled, and vaguely he could register Jongin’s voice calling out his name becoming more and more agitated somewhere in his immediate background.  
  
He was completely freaking out now, the more he thought about it, the more it didn’t make sense. Jongin was a _human_.   
  
-His knees were weak and he was starting to not feel anything below them-  
  
There were rules, the universe was governed by a strict set of rules. There was a strict order, aligning everything perfectly in order to contain the total chaos that by its nature, everything within the universe was.  
  
Jongin was convincingly human, yet very weird and disconcertingly unpredictable in a very un-human fashion.  
  
-He was going to topple over any minute now. Oh god, Tao was going to fall and die because everything that could possibly go wrong was going wrong. The universe operated under a strict set of laws that up until now, he’d always sneakily bypassed and now it was going to punish him for it. It hated him, this was retribution-  
  
Tao hated it, hated not knowing, not being in control. It was suffocating, like five centuries under _house arrest_ in your own cave.  
  
-He was hyperventilating-  
  
Tao scoffed out, incredulous.  
  
“You need to calm down,” Sehun said, voice far away and gobbled like it had to fight through a few water bubbles first before finding its way to Tao.  
  
“Tao, what the hell is going on?” came Jongin’s voice, just as worried.  
  
“You know how long it took you to figure out the _rapter’s_ time loops and holes,” Tao laughed, shook his head a little and suddenly perked up, pointing an accusatory finger at Jongin.  
  
“It took him a couple of weeks to figure it out? H-how, I mean… it doesn’t make any sense. It doesn’t…”  
  
-He was falling. Slowly. Steadily. He was falling. His knees had given way under him and he was falling like a felled pine tree-  
  
Warm arms wrapped around him easing him into an instant cocoon of calm. He was being moved, he realised. Slowly, cautiously, a soothing voice right at the edge of his ear as strong arms made easy work of his limbs so that he was now lying flat on a bed.  
  
His eyes were unfocused, but for a brief moment, he could see Jongin looking down at him all wide eyed and pale. Tao didn’t like that look on him, and for a moment he thought he’d reach up and fix it, but his arms were two tonne bricks at his sides.  
  
His eyes fluttered closed once and he immediately forgot to open them again until much later when Sehun’s voice came through, distant and vaguely recognisable.  
  
“...I mean, he seemed okay when they got here? I don’t know, Jongin do you…”  
  
Jongin must’ve gestured, because he didn’t hear any voices for a while after that, but he couldn’t be too sure. There were gaps in his cognition of time flowing around him and inside his bones. It felt like he was drifting in and out of consciousness but the aurora behind his eyelids suggested that his _rapter_ , for some reason, was out of whack.  
  
“ Unrelated, but exactly how many wishes has he executed?”  
  
It was Baekhyun’s voice, cold and distant in that ‘impartial Seven Kings’ fashion they were infamously known for.  
  
If Baekhyun was here, any of the Seven for that matter, then it meant lawful chaos. Tao had to get away somehow, and it would be so easy if he’d just ease himself into the aurora, let the _rapter_ seep through his veins and…    
  
a jerk  
  
two  
  
and then nothing.  
  
Tao  closed his eyes tightly and tried to leap with the jerk of his _rapter_ but there was nothing. No response. No aurora behind his eyes, no static electricity zapping in the air around him, absolutely nothing.  
  
It was as though he was firmly anchored where he was, in this plane and on Sehun’s bed.  
  
Tao was still bound to Jongin, he suddenly remembered, just as the voices in the room quietened, everything around him going deathly still.  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
“Hey buddy, you okay?”  
  
It was Baekhyun, leaning over him with creased brows and pinched features. Tao slowly sat up, fixing Sehun with an accusing glare and then Jongin, with a resigned sigh.  
  
“ Bad news,” Baekhyun was saying, expression still pinched even as his lips curled into an incredulous smirk.  
  
“You have a bit of dragon smoke poisoning in your system, but that shouldn’t be a problem getting out since you know, we all know that Yifan and yourself used to _indulge_ for recreational purposes,” he drawled in the most lewd fashion anyone could muster, taking a pause to snicker.  
  
Behind him, Sehun’s eyebrows furrowed, lips pursed into a thin wry line.  
  
“More pressingly, however, Jongin here says he’s down to one wish? Funny story, because Sehun claims you’ve been using the _rapter_ on the human for weeks?” Baekhyun continued, seamlessly easing into his authoritative voice, so that there could never be any doubt that he belonged to the highest tier of all djinn-folk tiers. He was one of the Seven, with a god-driven mandate to maintain order and crack his divine whip wherever he saw fit, after all.  
  
Their friendship alone, along with Sehun and Luhan’s relationship, was something of a wonder.  
  
It was a largely accepted fact, however, that Baekhyun was the most ungodlike of the Seven.  
  
The Seven Kings were a little lower than the Creator and other lesser gods, but among the djinn and in this realm, they were as exacting as the gods themselves. One never dared to forget.  
  
“Technically, I only made one wish,” Jongin unhelpfully supplied, drawing an exasperated groan from Tao.  
  
“Specifics,” Tao said, waving his hand loosely and shrugging off the linen that’d been covering his torso.  
  
Baekhyun narrowed his eyes.  
  
“I have to call it in, you know this? There’s a reason why we have rules for this sort of thing Tao,” Baekhyun said, looking for all the world like he found it extremely uncomfortable, being put into this position.  
  
“Should a summoning object be activated, the djinni is obliged to immediately fulfill three of the summoners wishes as per section F8 (d6) of the Articles, the law is perfectly clear on this. Now you know, the Seven don’t usually meddle or dictate a proper course of action, but the wishes are meant to be executed immediately,” both Sehun and Tao rolled their eyes as Baekhyun rambled, shoulders stiff and squared, nose offensively upturned.  
  
Jongin stood off at a distance, looking sorely out of place and incredibly out of his depth.  
  
“I’m well aware, but I can’t exactly rush him into a wish now, can I?”  
  
All eyes were suddenly directed towards Jongin, who spluttered, clutching his chest in offended disbelief.  
  
“Wait a minute. So far, all my wishes have not come out the way I wanted them. Why should I even trust you with a third one when all you’ve delivered were poor results? Are you sure you even know how to grant a wish? Maybe five centuries left you a little wonk--”  
  
“Oh, he’s mouthy, I like him,” Baekhyun traitorously declared, rounding on Jongin and placing a loose arm around his shoulders.  
  
“Unfortunately the Seven don’t have any jurisdiction on how a djinni chooses to execute a wish, but I’m willing to reach some sort of compromise if you are.”  
  
As a rule, Baekhyun was a shameless man. Any other time and with any other person, Tao was sure he’d be sniggering with Sehun too. But, something about the way Jongin was suddenly rendered speechless, a flare of  dusty pink brightening his cheeks as Baekhyun’s hand resolutely found his waist, snaking down further to Jongin’s pert ass. Something about how Jongin looked away, smiling coy and not moving away, something about it stirred an unpleasant whirl inside Tao’s chest. Hot and volatile.  
  
All of a sudden he didn’t feel like negotiating wishes or executing them altogether. All of a sudden, the idea of Jongin settling on a last wish and subsequently freeing Tao from his service didn’t feel like something worth looking forward to anymore.  
  
There was so much he needed to unpack and examine, but presently all Tao had was the presence of mind to place himself between Baekhyun and Jongin, taking Jongin’s hand stiffly and easing into a jerky _rapt_.  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
It was a false move, there’d been virtually no need for this kind of brashness but here they were, surrounded by midnight blue and a splattering of purple, the air static around them as Jongin gasped softly, eyes trained on the aurora behind Tao’s head.  
  
“Where is this place?” came Jongin’s voice, soft and tender as though he feared anything any more assertive than this was bound to shatter everything into smithereens.  
  
“Someplace else,” Tao said, pulling Jongin closer and tracing his eyes lingeringly all over the human's face. Close together like this, everything about Jongin seemed too material, and Tao couldn’t help but feel a little silly at the sudden urge to count every one of Jongin’s eyelashes, fluttering up and down as his eyes gaped into space.  
  
“How do you do it?” Jongin asked softly, eyes shifting so that they were looking into Tao’s own, breath catching just barely at the realisation of how compromising their position was.  
  
Tao held him tighter.  
  
“You know, I _did_ grant you the first wish. It’s  just… only you can make it work. But, I suppose I could also show you how,” Tao said suddenly, feeling entirely too generous.  
  
Jongin cleared his throat, only momentarily letting his eyes dart away before bringing them back up to meet Tao’s.  
  
Perhaps he wanted it so badly that his mind couldn’t help but imagine it for him, because there was no reasonable explanation for feeling Jongin pressing into him some more, as though there was still any space between them that needed to be urgently done away with.  
  
“Show me,” he breathed out, eyes fluttering closed ever so delicately.  
  
To be sure, Tao had never done this before. Not like this, not with someone else, a human no less.  
  
There was a good chance that it wouldn’t work. There was a good chance that Jongin would get lost out here, in a place that neither was nor is in the normal flow of space, but a place all the same. There was a good chance Jongin wouldn’t grasp everything as Tao meant to show him. There was a good chance that everything and anything would go wrong.  
  
But Jongin’s eyes fluttered open, searching Tao’s face and only briefly lingering on his lips.  
  
And well, nothing, absolutely nothing could have saved him from that moment except to just breathe in, close his eyes and leap.  


 


	3. Chapter 3

 

After the fourth try, Jongin could now do it on his own. The execution of his first wish meant that he was now able to move through spaces with one single thought. A sort of adopted _quirk_ , Tao had explained. Because naturally, everyone here came with one.  
  
Tao’s own _quirk_ , gave him the distinct ability to manipulate time. But years of dedicated cultivation had resulted in him knowing how to make it so that he could manipulate the rules to which space too was bound. After all, the same rules which applied to time, applied to space.  
  
All that Jongin needed was a single thought and he could take himself anywhere. A stronger thought yet and he’d probably stop time too, but that was still a long way off. For now, he had to perfect the basics, using the mind map of all the unfamiliar places that were Tao’s home.  
  
Visualise, pick it from a memory or a description, ease into the _rapt_ . Rinse and repeat.  
  
  
  
They were in one of the cities bordering the Red Country.  
  
It was no different to the cities from his own world, except once in awhile someone would whizz by on a magick carpet, with the express intent of reminding Jongin that he was as far from home as he could possibly be.  
  
Jongin had expected to see fantastical creatures and beasts straight out of a fantasy movie, but so far he’d come across a penguin with wide eyes and chubby cheeks and a giant with a keen taste in high fashion and a smile that looked painfully wide.  
  
All, to his absolute dismay, had resolutely humanoid features and mannerisms he was painfully familiar with.  
  
The penguin in particular, wore his hair out in a military issue buzz cut, eyes glaring at everyone and everything in sight like, collectively, they personally offended his mother. It was a little disconcerting, to say the least.  
  
Only when he’d inquired, had Tao grinned mischievously, disappearing out of sight with a pop, only for a white mountain fox to appear in the djinni’s stead.  
  
“I can do anything, djinn-folk, remember?” the mountain fox had reminded and Jongin vaguely suspected that the djinni hadn’t meant to scare him half to death, but he’d jumped with a pathetic squeak, in any case.  
  
“Can you, uh, okay never mind,” Jongin had said after gaining back a little of his composure and the colour in his cheeks. His legs were still shaking and knocking together at the knees, but his heartbeat was now a stable thump inside his chest.  
  
“What? State your request, none of that coy shit.”

Tao liked to swear, an unhealthy amount and somehow Jongin felt like it was never enough.   
  
In retrospect, the most remarkable thing about Tao switching from his human form to mountain fox, black white chested bear, only to settle on a big and yawning panda in broad daylight_ on the sidewalk of a busy street, of an even busier djinni business district_ was the fact that none of the people around them had stopped to stare and gasp in awe alongside Jongin.  
  
Throngs of people flitted past them, carrying briefcases and high-end purses, while others whizzed by above, in an orderly fashion atop exquisitely coloured flying carpets. Not a single one of them had thought to stop and stare at the black white chested bear grunting, all put upon of course, as it dragged an awestruck human from one block of the district to the next.  
  
The most reaction Jongin could’ve hoped for, came from a middle-aged woman who grimaced when Tao in his sleepy panda form had bumped into her, glaring at him like he was a mere delinquent wasting valuable taxpayers’ money by breathing and generally existing, so carefree(ly) on the sidewalk. And well, that too, had been a terribly remarkable event to witness.  
  
  
  
“ Space and time, how do I explain this?”  
  
They were in the middle of the lobby, waiting for the hotel staff to finish keying in Tao’s details.  
  
“Debit or credit?”  
  
Without moving his eyes away from Jongin’s, Tao slipped a black card from somewhere on his panda… person and handed it to the woman behind the counter. Jongin staunchly refused to question or rationalise it.  
  
“It’s like water, I guess? It can be liquid or solid, warm or cold but it’s all… okay, let’s say you have a coin, right?”  
  
A gold coin materialised in between his middle and index finger. Jongin was a little surprised to find that Tao’s magick no longer drew a reaction from him.  
  
“It has two sides, each very different from the other, but no matter which angle you look at it from, it’ll always be the same coin.”  
  
The coin slipped from between two fingers and into the space between the next pair. Heads and tails. Heads and tails. He threw it into the air and time seemed to drag as they waited for it to land on the back of Tao’s palm, his other hand coming up to cover it.  
  
Tails.  
  
“You just have to figure out what your coin is to know how to manipulate it.”  
  
Jongin started when Tao threw the gold coin at him, barely managing to catch it.  
  
Heads.  
  
  
  
  
  
At this rate, Jongin suspected that he, generally, had it in for knowledgeable men prone to passionate impromptu lectures. Now that he was thinking about it, he hadn’t thought about Chanyeol in… he’d been here for what, months? Was it? His sense of time had been toyed with enough times for it to become a wishy-washy concept inside his head.  
  
It was a little scary, as all new things were. But it felt good, a dizzying all-consuming kind of good. And even though his past self would’ve hated him for it, it was surprisingly liberating, not having to think about Chanyeol every other minute.  
  
“That makes absolutely no sense, but alright,” Jongin said after a stretch of time too long.  
  
He wasn’t losing bits of himself, he realised, he was giving them away. Freely.  
  
The woman behind the counter raised her head, narrowing her eyes judgmentally when they met Jongin’s.  
  
“If it helps, you could visualise something like a gate and all you’d to do is just walk right through it. I used to do that when--”  
  
“I’m sorry Sir, but could you please come this way,”  
  
Behind them, four security officers were standing with shoulders squared like they were more than prepared to pounce if either Tao or Jongin were to make a false move.  
  
“Is there a problem?” Tao inquired, glaring accusingly at the woman behind the counter, jaw set.  
  
“No problem if you come with us,” said one of the security officers, fingers tapping conspicuously at his holster where Jongin almost expected to find a gun. But of course, nothing in this world was ever that simple, because when Tao rushed to grab Jongin’s hand, signalling for him to jump, a force field weaved it’s way around them in a series of intricately connected thumb sized hexagons.  
  
“See, we were told you’d do that,” the officer said, tearing through the force field like it didn’t have any effect on him whatsoever.  
  
“So we came prepared,” he continued, waving around a singular pair of neon green zip ties, grin wide and smug.  
  
Jongin and Tao remained in place, too weak to protest as the officer secured the zip ties around Tao’s wrists.  
  
Fastened in place around Tao’s wrists, the restraints exuded a warm gentle glow, a deceptively beautiful little thing.  
  
“I wish you didn’t try so hard to fight everything and everyone,” came Baekhyun’s exasperated voice from behind them, a disappointed sigh following closely. The force field blinked a deep and electric purple and then dulled before shattering into scattered hexagonal shards around them.  
  
Tao turned about to look at his friend, a look of betrayal contorting his features.  
  
“Why?” Tao asked, dejected voice crawling up Jongin’s spine in a cold shiver.  
  
“Because,” Baekhyun said, coming to stand beside Tao, flagged on the other side by a worry-eyed Sehun.  
  
“Rules are rules and your failure to adhere is leaving us no other options, I’m afraid.”  
  
“It’s just one stupid wish. He’ll make it eventually, there’s really no need for dramatics,” Tao countered.  
  
“Then why keep running?”  
  
Baekhyun took a generous pause out of courtesy, allowing him the opportunity to explain himself.  
  
After a stretch of a moment too long without receiving an answer, Baekhyun nodded his head and the glow of the zip ties flashed once more before mellowing out into a washed out grey.  
  
“Now if you please,” another officer said, gesturing for them to follow, except when Jongin made to move, one of the other officers grabbed him by the arm, pulling him in the opposite direction. Baekhyun, Sehun and the rest were leading the only person he knew in this world in another.  
  
The panic of it swept over his lungs, constricting his throat in large lumps that made it hard to breathe.  
  
“Tao,” he cried out in alarm.  
  
Tao looked back, then at Baekhyun, a clear plea on his face.  
  
Baekhyun’s face remained staunch, cold like this it was hard to believe they were friends at all.  
  
After a beat too long, Tao began to fight against the restraints, heaving his body in a way that created too much trouble than it was worth. The restraints only became tighter, biting into his skin with a pinch.  
  
“I’ll go with him,” a slightly jilted Sehun volunteered, worried eyes flitting between Jongin and Tao.  
  
Tao stopped struggling against his restraints, eyeing Sehun pleadingly.  
  
“J-just stop fighting this,” Sehun pleaded, and with that the fight in Tao’s eyes seeped right out, his shoulders sagging in relief more than resignation.  
  
“I’m sorry,” Sehun mouthed, before he left Baekhyun’s side to follow the officer who’d been tasked with leading Jongin away.  
  
Tao took one last look at Jongin, mouthing the word ‘jump’ and before Jongin could make sense of anything, they were being marched off in opposite directions.  
  
  
  
Jongin did not jump. He did not talk either.  
  
  
  
They’d tried to wear him out and when that hadn’t worked empty threats had promptly ensued. Jongin didn’t know where he’d gotten the courage from to stand his ground but he’d withstood it all until there was no trick remaining except maybe to bargain. That hadn’t worked out as they would’ve liked either, because when they’d told Jongin they were willing to give him three bonus wishes in exchange for their bond to be broken, nothing had come to mind for which three extra wishes could be useful.  
  
“I want to be able to see him whenever I choose,” Jongin had demanded and a woman who’d introduced herself as another of the Seven, Jin Ri, had pursed her lips, her gaze hardening as she shook her head once before storming out of the room.  
  
Like the woman from the desert, she too had a matching pair of machetes crossed together behind her back.  
  
Jongin had expected her to wield them at some point, yet she’d just left the interrogation room having barely said more than one sentence his way.  
  
It was almost too easy, as though someone was working extra hard to make sure that Jongin always had the upper hand. Because it wasn’t like they were aware of his _quirk_ , Jongin didn’t pose an imminent threat to anyone as far as the authorities were concerned. Yet somehow, it seemed as though they were going out of their way to let him get away with his bratty behaviour, pandering to his every whim.  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
In the end the authorities couldn’t even keep him confined for more than twenty four hours, and Sehun had been there in the lobby, waiting to take him back home.  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
“There’s a delicate balance that everyone tries not to upset, I guess,” Sehun was saying. He was walking around his living room with a bottle of water in one hand, spritzing generously at his plants. The plants seemed sentient, following his every movement and unfurling their tendrils to let the water flow down the length of them unhindered.  
  
“There are so many rules being broken with you just being here alone and there’s really no telling what kind of damage it’ll result in. At the same time, whatever the damage is, it’ll probably be triple that if even just a strand of your hair is so much as plucked,” he shrugged and Jongin wrinkled his nose.  
  
It didn’t make sense, none of it made sense.  
  
It sounded way too easy, like a video game he’d played enough times to muster every trick there was.  
  
“What does that even mean?”  
  
Sehun shrugged again, passing Jongin on his way out of the room.  
  
After a little while, Sehun peeked his head past the threshold, eyebrows furrowed hard and thoughtful.  
  
“We’re not supposed to interfere with human affairs unless summoned, that’s how it’s always worked. Generally, we don’t interfere with other realms at all.”  
  
“Can I ask you something?” Jongin said. He didn’t think that Sehun would tell him what he wanted to hear, if he’d learnt anything by now it was that djinn-folk were severely evasive.  
  
He wasn’t expecting much, but he still wanted to ask anyway. Just in case.  
  
And also maybe because talking about Tao kept his memory fresh and unsullied inside his head.  
  
Jongin had caught himself almost forgetting the shape of the djinni’s eyes earlier. The shape of his mouth becoming something else, while his nose didn’t seem to be his at all. His mind was giving him a collection of familiar enough features and limbs and assembling them into something that was vaguely familiar but barely Tao.  
  
Jongin didn’t wish to forget too soon.  
  
“Why was he under _house arrest_ ?”  
  
Sehun’s eyebrows furrowed in thought. He wasn’t rushing to dismiss the question altogether, which felt like a good sign. It was a good sign, except…  
  
“I think maybe that’s something he should tell you on his own… if he wants,” Sehun said. And Jongin would’ve dwelled on it some more, if he didn’t already know how that would pan out.  
  
“You seem close,” Sehun said a little while later. It was a declaration, leaving no room for debate. Jongin couldn’t disagree, even though it didn’t sound quite right.  
  
  
  
  
  
He didn’t have a mind map, so Jongin waited until Sehun left the cave.  
  
  
  
Following at a cautious distance so that he wouldn’t be caught, Jongin stayed close but appropriately out of sight until the connecting tunnels led them back up to the ground above.  
  
The prison stood in front of him, barely a hundred meters away. It was large and looming, a vindictive sun piercing the sky directly overhead.  
  
He didn’t have to follow Sehun in right that minute, just visualising the entrance would be enough.  
  
Visualise. Ease into the _rapt_ . Rinse and repeat.  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
“Are you sure you wouldn’t rather be with Chanyeol right now? It must get lonely,” Lu Han said, feeling him out. Sehun wasn’t back yet from visiting with Tao, but Lu Han hadn’t at all seemed bothered, pushing his way past Jongin and making himself comfortable on one of the large cushions sprawled out on the living space.  
  
It did in fact get lonely without Tao around, but Jongin hadn’t thought he needed Chanyeol in forever.  
  
It came as a bit of a surprise, realising that he could in fact have wished for his love to be returned the way he’d always dreamed. He could’ve wished for Chanyeol to see him, for Chanyeol to need him, love him, want him. But Jongin hadn’t even thought to need Chanyeol like that, not in a long while.  
  
“What did they promise you in there, eh? Three wishes? I have it on good record that you could have it doubled, only you’ll have to cooperate,” Lu Han went on, baiting him like everyone else had similarly tried. Only, Jongin couldn’t think of anything he’d want enough to leave Tao with the way things currently were.  
  
“I didn’t ask to be here,” Jongin said quietly, low enough that Lu Han probably only picked it up because he was already in Jongin’s headspace.  
  
“I didn’t ask to find the _gate_ , I was doing perfectly fine without all this,” he gestured to the space around them.  
  
There was a time when he would’ve killed for an opportunity like this. Jongin was pretty sure that even now, a couple of sapphires and black diamonds to take back home would do wonders for his student debt. He’d be set for life, and maybe he’d finally travel from coast to coast, Cairo to the Cape, just as he’d always hoped to but never could quite afford. He could even afford to pay someone to have a baby for him, along with all those pricey fertility treatments that came with surrogacy. He needed a baby.  
  
He needed many things  
  
Yet somehow, all of it paled in comparison to Tao. Not his person, to be sure. The tinkle of his laughter, a bit of that. The way his face would scrunch up whenever he yawned, certainly that. His diva shit, his scheming fuckery, always ready with a trick and a truckload of bullshit. That too, he’d take a bit of that too honestly.The smile on him, a lazy tug at the edges of his lips, sly like a fox, eyes slanting upwards into tiny slits, all of that. Nothing seemed pertinent enough as the chance to experience Tao’s everything, unrationed and surveillance free.  
  
Just him and the djinni, he’d take whatever there was to take if he could just feel that cocoon of warmth and unexpected happiness once more.  
  
The sentiment was a little misplaced. Up until now his feelings for Tao had been superficial at best, he’d thought.  
  
Tao was always bare chested, a severely distracting little thing. Jongin had revelled in it, after the initial shock and unease had taken enough heat and colour out of his cheeks. He had beautiful eyes too, deep slanted black water pools with an ever present barrenness inside them. Beautiful in that way that monstrous forest fires and 80 foot inland bound waves always are. Like an encounter with vengeful god, breathtaking, demanding and all-consuming, your limbs wouldn’t lift to fight even if they remembered how.  
  
He wasn’t blind, Tao was a supremely attractive man. Still, superficial, in any case.  
  
“But now you can,” Lu Han insisted.  
  
“You can ask for anything in the world, yet you’re going to waste it all on something so fickle? I don’t think I need to tell you just how stupid you’re being about this.”  
  
Incredibly stupid, he was being incredibly stupid about this. But again, Jongin couldn’t think of anything else he’d want more than to fix this for Tao. Nothing more he wanted than just to stay a little while longer, without having to worry about the heavy and real stuff that’d meet him once he was back to his old life. Nothing more than just being.  
  
He needed that, he needed to just be. Preferably with Tao  
  
He needed happy clappy chemical stuff to keep pumping in his veins. He needed Tao by his side to regularly trigger the stuff to get pumping.  
  
  
  
  
  
  
Later on that night, with Sehun and Luhan loudly and remorselessly _getting theirs_ two rooms down from his own, Jongin jumped.  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
Tao woke up with a start and then a shout, sending Jongin scrambling to gag and restrain him so that they wouldn’t attract any attention. There were two guards down, at the end of the hall where the first set of solitary cells were. One in the control room drinking a hot beverage as he vaguely kept stock of the myriad of movements being projected from fifteen monitors simultaneously, whilst his partner snored like a beaten truck right next to him. There were others, a great many others, mostly unaccounted for but it wasn’t like any of them knew to expect a visitor of his nature.  
  
“You scared me,” Tao hissed, a hand clutched over his chest as he desperately tried to get his breathing in check.  
  
“Why? You knew I was coming,” Jongin reminded, taking a tentative seat on the single bed, thigh brushing up right against Tao’s.  
  
Tao made an offended sound, pulling his blanket from right under Jongin and covering his shoulders with it. It was almost strange, the sight of him covering his upper half. In all the time they’d been together, Tao’s chest had always stood puffed out and bare. Never a slave to the elements, except when imprisoned and stripped of all his powers, it seemed.  
  
Sehun had explained how the force field and zip ties were meant to neutralise and contain Tao’s power so that he’d be defenseless. Jongin didn’t doubt for a second that Tao being placed in solitary confinement had meant to serve more or less the same purpose.  
  
“Took you long enough,” Tao muttered under his breath, folding his legs as he pulled himself into a corner.  
  
The room was dark and small, lights out having already rung two hours ago.  
  
It was a little cold too, now that Jongin was thinking about it.  
  
Cold and lonely had never been a pleasant duo.  
  
“You’re eating good? They’re not starving you are they?”  
  
Tao looked up at him with a confuddled expression. He did not answer as he wiggled himself into the fold of his sheets.  
  
Patting the space next to him for Jongin to lie down, he said, “Make it quick, I can take it. But spend the night anyway.”  
  
“Make what quick?”  
  
“The last wish,” Tao said with barely concealed irritation flaring in his eyes. He seemed upset, his words a little snippy when Jongin dared to smile.  
  
“What, trying to get rid of me already? I thought we were getting along so nicely,” Jongin said with a sarcastic tone that tried and failed to be as nonchalant as he’d intended.  
  
Tao perched his neck on top of his fist, shook his head once and sighed like the truly burdened.  
  
Once more, he gestured for Jongin to lie down next to him and Jongin surprised himself this time around by not pretending he hadn’t seen it.  
  
As soon as his head connected with the pillow, Tao’s hand was in his hair, gliding through his trusses like his fingers were writing a demanding story. It was terribly disarming and had all the effect of reminding him of their time together in the desert. He remembered how Tao had just been there, bare chested except for the piece of jewellery hanging from his neck. Golden bands curling around his arms where the muscles strained from him holding up a corrugated piece of iron against a wind storm that got tired of posturing halfway down the line.  
  
His blonde locks had billowed with the wind, some stray strands falling into his eyes and Jongin had ached to touch. Tao had been right there and all Jongin wanted to do was touch it, touch it.  
  
It could have been Tao, it could’ve been anyone else for that matter. Jongin just want to touch someone, any body. And Tao had been right there, distractingly bare chested, sharp toned arms flexed, and a healthy pulse thrumming inside his wrists.  
  
And he would’ve kissed him too, held him close and done so much more because Jongin had wanted a body. Any body. The unsated fire of desire of a boy who’s never held another. Any body would’ve done just as well.  
  
But not right now it wouldn’t. Right this minute, not just anybody would do.  
  
This was intimate, to him at least.  
  
Sacred, even as he scoffed internally at the sheer ludicrous of it all. This was sacred. This was tender and soft and a little fluffy, Jongin could understand why Tao’s eyes had fluttered closed like he was powerless and intoxicated back then when Jongin had done the same to him in the desert. Jongin could understand why he was whimpering now, distantly. From somewhere beyond the confines of his flesh and skin he could hear and see himself whimpering and not caring enough to catch himself in time and show an appropriate amount of shame. It was too intimate, a touch too demanding yet barely anything. All that his mind wished to dwell on was that it wasn’t just any body, it was significant, raw and intense even in its purity and the bare nothing that defined it. Just fingers carding through his scalp. Raw and intensely significant, because it was Tao.  
  
“It’s just one wish. I can make you king of the world if you will it enough. Or I could make you a famous dancer, a pop star, mmh? You’d have a million girls and boys thrashing about at your feet at any given moment and you could be king of the world in their eyes and hearts too, wouldn’t you like that?”  
  
Jongin hummed, and then moaned a moment later when Tao’s fingers found the nape of his neck and apparently, one single way to have him dreaming wide awake.  
  
Tao was saying something, a lot of things and Jongin wasn’t whimpering any longer but he couldn’t be too sure. There were bits and pieces of sound that dragged to his ears in between long bouts of nothiness and sweet gentle dreams. His eyelids felt heavy to drag all the way open and the most he could muster when Tao playfully slapped him to get his attention was a long drawn out hum.  
  
He was awake and then dreaming, but both spaces felt like a nirvana, with Tao’s unassuming touch and the low timbre of his voice permeating both.  
  
“It could be anything, just say the words and it’s all yours,” Tao whispered next to his ear and Jongin’s muscles shuddered without his permission.  
  
“Anything and it’s mine?” Jongin said, testily.  
  
“Anything and it’s yours. Don’t try to be smart and say me because there’s a law against that too. You can’t just wish a djinni to serve you forever,” Tao preemptively reproached.  
  
Jongin grumbled without opening his eyes, urging Tao’s hand to move where it had stilled behind his ear by shaking it sluggishly.  
  
He was feeling particularly needy and sleepy enough that his defenses and sense of propriety had been safely tucked away where they couldn’t judge or resist.  
  
“Have a little imagination, who said anything about serving me forever.”  
  
He could feel Tao’s eyes on him, disbelieving and severely judgemental.  
  
“I’ll admit that I have thought of it, having a powerful djinni by my side for as long as I live. That’s power, everybody loves power,”  
  
Tao scoffed.  
  
“But I don’t want you to serve me, I just want you to get us out of here,” Jongin said, more alert than he’d been a minute before. He opened his eyes as he was sitting up, searching Tao’s face for answers he didn’t think he knew the questions to just as yet.  
  
“I can’t do that,” Tao said, sullen.  
  
Jongin made to stand, covering the bits of Tao’s skin that were exposed. He avoided eye contact.  
  
“Then I’ll keep going back to Sehun’s until you figure out how to get me my wish,”  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
The following night, Tao didn’t wake up with a start. He hadn’t even slept at all, it seemed.  
  
“It doesn’t work like that, you know?”  
  
Without any preamble, Jongin snuggled in next to him on the tiny bed.  
  
The room was colder than it had been the previous night.  
  
Tao’s unexpected simper, sent a flash of hot air straight to the tip of his ears.  
  
And the room felt warm. Tao’s cold and scratchy sheets felt warm and welcoming. Everything was warm.  
  
“My djinni privileges are all neutralized in here and I haven’t felt my _rapter_ since they used the force field on us.”  
  
“I know this,” Jongin said, disaffected, leaning  the crown of his head into Tao’s touch.  
  
When Tao’s fingers started to run along his scalp, the residual tension in him seeped right out. He was warm, inside and out.  
  
“I’d have to submit your last wish to the Seven for approval before I can even start to think about them letting me out of here.”  
  
His fingers were magick, dragging through his hair like that, pulling every bit of sensation upwards, from the tip of his toes and everywhere else along the way. Jongin was stuck in that space again, where everything was a bit of a dream, but Tao’s touch and his voice still slipped through regardless, making it hard for Jongin to tell apart what was happening in real time from what was superimposed on the black space behind his eyelids.  
  
“So much paperwork to go through,” Tao muttered distractedly.  
  
“I miss the _rapter_. It’s a part of me, you’re denying me a part of me just because you insist on being childish about this,” Tao accused, wrenching Jongin right out of the sweet, warm and tender. He blinked his eyes open, gazed up where Tao was looking down at him.  
  
“Just end this,” Tao pleaded.  
  
Jongin sighed heavily, disappointed.  
  
“I can give you what you really need. C-chanyeol, I can make Chanyeol want you like you deserve,” he bargained, his voice noticeably strained.  
  
Jongin got up abruptly, shoving Tao’s legs off him with an exasperated breath. The whole bottom half weight of him had been holding Jongin down and it had been suffocating, warm and welcomed.  
  
The room didn’t feel as warm anymore.  
  
“Figure out how to get me what I wished for and I’ll stop coming here,” Jongin demanded one last time, before easing into a jerky rapt and letting his mind decide for him where to go next.  
  
  
  
  
  
He didn’t go far. After letting his memories decide for him where to go, every rapt since then had led him back here, squeezing against Tao on a cramped bed for space. A light dreamless sleep not meant for the dawn to catch him there.  
  
By the time the next guard woke the whole wing the following morning, Jongin had already left for Sehun’s.  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
In the coming nights, he found that he couldn’t sleep as well at Sehun’s as he did cramped between a cold washed out grey prison wall and Tao’s hot furnace of a body.  
  
  
  
  
  
  
More nights come to pass, with Jongin sleeping through the violent turf wars Tao’s limbs always inadvertently engaged him in, with none Tao’s or his consent.  
  
Bright bruises on his skin painted a remarkably vivid picture of it all in the mornings.  
  
  
  
  
  
  
Whenever Sehun came back from visiting with Tao, he’d talk to Jongin about it. Talk to him about Tao before this, even before the five centuries prior or whatever had caused them.  
  
As a small mercy, no mention of a third wish was ever made.  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
It was a night like any other. Jongin had fallen asleep with Tao’s fingers entangled in his hair and Tao had slept a little while after that too. They no longer talked about the third wish, and it suited Jongin just fine. There were a million other pertinent things to talk about. Two parallel worlds worth of conversational content, certainly. And it suited everyone concerned just fine.  
  
Jongin always made sure to leave early, right before the first round of guards started their early morning patrols if he was running a little late. He didn’t have an alarm on him but his body had weirdly become attuned to this sort of thing, always waking him up way, way before dawn.  
  
Tao’s bed had resolutely become his too, it seemed.  
  
This particular morning didn’t feel any different from the others, except for the moan that got wrenched right out of him, startling him from a deep sleep in time to feel Tao hot and thick at the small of his back, grinding into him with a leaden purpose.  
  
The room was silent, in that very loud and confusing way that makes it difficult to discern sounds. His breath was caught in his throat and a moment too long had passed by for him to not be completely certain that he’d dreamt it all up. His dreams had been going rogue for a while now, really.  
  
He could still feel Tao pressed right against him, but the djinni was unmoving, delicate breaths escaping his half parted lips to fan the back of Jongin’s neck. Jongin was just about to ease back into another dream when he felt it again, languid but sure, Tao’s thick cock fighting against fabric to slip in between Jongin’s cheeks this time.  
  
Tao moaned, grounding his hips into Jongin again, this time with a little more urgency.  
  
Jongin felt like a thief and a cheat, because it was as though he was taking away something important from Tao, the way things were going. Something important and good, dragging up his backside languidly, full and ...he had to wake Tao up. He had to.  
  
“Mm,” Tao said when Jongin called his name for the fourth time. His movements stopped for a moment as he seemed to be getting his bearings right.  
  
Jongin couldn’t help the disgruntled whimper that left him at the loss of sensation and as soon as the sound had left his mouth, he shuddered back into Tao’s hold before freezing in place. Behind him, Tao seemed to tense up only for a second before he was groaning in Jongin’s ear once more.  
  
“Feels good,” Tao declared with a sluggish voice and he thrust his hips forward, letting his cock drag against the cleft of Jongin’s ass. His hand was clawing into Jongin’s hip, keeping him in place where their clothed bottom halves were pasted one to the other.  
  
Jongin replied with a quiet moan. He wasn’t going to think it through, apparently. His dick had made the executive decision to just live and let live on behalf of him and this part was where the living got riveting and recklessly carefree.  
  
He’d wanted this for a while now. He’d be lying if he ever said that from the moment he’d laid eyes on Tao he’d never imagined it. How could he not when Tao was Tao, and Jongin was filled to bursting with curiosity and the avarice of a man who’s only ever known what it’s like to be starved.  
  
Tao breathed down his neck, pasting butterfly kisses on whatever patch of skin he could find.  
  
“Jongin,” Tao groaned out in an effort to get him to respond.  
  
Jongin wasn’t moving, wasn’t breathing too, it seemed. He whimpered and moaned quietly as and when the reactions were dragged right out of him but he didn’t move or speak. In his mind, he thought that maybe if he were to play possum, Tao would eventually get tired or sleepy enough to let this go. Why he wanted to let it go, Jongin didn’t have an answer except that maybe he was afraid and wanted to make sure.  
  
He needed to make sure that he wasn’t imagining it or that Tao wasn’t acting out a dream. So he remained deathly still until one of Tao’s hands finally creeped to the front of his crotch, squeezing lightly but sure.  
  
He parted his legs then, giving Tao’s hand room to do as it pleased, go where it pleased and conquer.  
  
“Haven’t done this in such a long while. You’ve no idea how badly I want it Jongin,” Tao said, dragging his clothed cock in between the space created by Jongin’s parted thighs. They were still lying down on their sides, with Jongin’s leg lifted and pulled back to lay on top of Tao’s, creating a delicious pocket of heat for Tao to thrust into and drag through.  
  
“Mm,” Jongin said back, a little more responsive than he’d been earlier but still hesitant with his words.  
  
One dragged out thrust later and Tao’s fingers had slipped into Jongin’s pants, sliding down the length of his cock as it collected the precum dripping there, all the way down to his perineum and a little more tentatively, onto his hole.  
  
Jongin squirmed when two of Tao’s fingers pressed against his hole demandingly a moment later, circling it with a dizzying intent.  
  
“No, not there,” he said in protest, wiggling out of Tao’s hold and shoving him against the mattress so that Jongin would have ample room with which to straddle the djinni.  
  
“Why not there?” Tao asked in a teasing tone, fingers no longer working the outer ring of muscle of his hole but making no move to let it be either.  
  
“Not here, it’s,” he paused, thinking ‘ dirty ’ but managing to string out a, “...not here, I don’t want m-the first time to be in a cramped prison cell. It doesn’t exactly give off the kind of vibe I need,” instead.  
  
He’d never done what Tao’s wayward fingers had been suggesting, not with another person at least. But he didn’t think he’d come particularly prepared and he didn’t want to ruin whatever it is that they were starting with something as inconveniencing and silly as odour or something much worse. Neither of them had been prepared for this, and that was that.  
  
“Okay,”  
  
“Is it?” Jongin asked, ridding Tao of his pants with his foot while his fingers narrowed into the space between the djinni’s hips, squeezing gently and pressing hard circles into the skin with his digits.  
  
“So okay, better than okay,” Tao said with a hitch in his breath as Jongin’s lips trailed the path his fingers had left imprinted into the skin.  
  
“But we don’t exactly have to prep anything if you don’t want to either, djinn folk,” Tao said, pointing at himself with a sultry gaze fixed on Jongin.  
  
“Can do anything, remember?”  
  
Jongin’s breath left him in a tiny gasp and his eyes flashed with an expansive white as his fingers suddenly dipped. It felt like they were drowned, slipping all the way in as they did, drenched in hot muscle and warm slick.  
  
Tao looked up at him, features still the same, sharp edged and somehow softer now, blonde trusses a little longer, the split ends in them a little less than before. His tongue darted out onto his lips, licking briefly at his own digits before his playful fingers wormed their way down, insistent. Jongin’s followed them with rapt attention to Tao’s chest, were they circled around two mounds that looked a lot like…  
  
“You like them?”  
  
Tao had breasts, pert little b-cups most likely, full enough not to be mistaken for anything else.  
  
Jongin liked them. Of course he did. He liked many things, vaguely, he’d just never tried it out.  
  
His teenage years had passed him by in a hurricane of hormones and stress, which he’d  tried to avoid for as long as he could_ however he could_ because teen-pregnancies seemed like the scariest thing in the world to suffer through. And well, his university years had been wasted on Chanyeol, so he’d never really gotten the chance to test out what he liked then either.  
  
Objectively, he knew that he delighted in many things, because porn was a thing and he had a red blooded dick. He’d just never been offered so many options on a platter to take like this and, frankly, it was a little overwhelming.  
  
“Maybe one at a time,” Jongin suggested after while, letting his eyes drag down to where Tao’s fingers where now rubbing gently and wetly around a clit, his head thrown back in a soft moan.  
  
“Not all at once, you sure? I want you,” Tao said breathily, reaching for him with desperate hands.  
  
Jongin pulled his fingers out and laid them on Tao’s bottom lip, spreading the wetness all around.  
  
Tao licked at them gently, his eyes never breaking contact with Jongin’s. It felt like a challenge. It was a challenge.  
  
He sucked in one and then another, smiling widely when Jongin suddenly retreated in surrender.  
  
“Y-yeah, uh, one at a time,” Jongin stuttered, sitting back on his haunches and letting his eyes drag over the whole expanse of Tao’s body. It was beautiful still, yet soft edged and smaller somehow.  
  
“Alright. Let’s do it your way then,” Tao said, with a gentle chuckle. He sounded pleased with himself and barely a moment later, Tao was Tao again. All sharp edged and hard curves, flawless golden skin tightly pulled over a thick muscular frame.  
  
Jongin delighted in this very much.  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
“Haven’t done this ever, congratulations, you get to be the guinea pig,” Jongin said a moment later, no longer fumbling for words or shuddering helplessly. Tao seemed to find the confidence on him thoroughly pleasing, so naturally, Jongin ran with it.  
  
He chuckled a little evilly when Tao hissed and curled into himself as Jongin’s teeth scraped against the head of his cock.  
  
“Be gentle with the merch, fuck,” Tao shrieked and Jongin laughed again, head thrown back carefreely.  
  
“The test subject should know that we’re still in the experimentation stage and some things are bound to go wrong. Bear with me.”  
  
“Wow, you’re enjoying bombing this one out aren’t you?”  
  
“I don’t know Tao, I’d say it was bound to happen someday. You tricked me endlessly and had the time of your life with it, I scraped my teeth on your dick and enjoyed the fuck out of that. I’d say we’re even but I still have one more wish you need to deliver and make good on... so,” Jongin shrugged, diving right back in and swallowing Tao’s cock until his gag reflex mildly protested.  
  
Tao bucked his hips then, an evil smirk pasted on his face.  
  
It burned like vengeance.  
  
“Shit, warn me next time,” Jongin said after a violent coughing bout. The djinni looked mighty pleased with himself and even though Jongin hadn’t been prepared for the feeling of Tao’s cock taking up space all the way down to his lungs, he didn’t mind as much as he put on.  
  
It burned hot all the way down his throat, and it was beautiful in a heady sort of way. He wanted more of that. He needed more.  
  
“Aah, and miss this pretty ruined spluttering side of you? Where’s the fun in that?” Tao retorted, his thumb scraping back and forth on Jongin’s lower lip. Jongin darted his tongue out to lick at the thumb before sucking it in down.  
  
Tao gasped in a desperately tight breath, his eyes glazing over right before they fluttered closed. It pleased Jongin to no end.  
  
Licking up one last wide stripe up the hard length of Tao’s gold and flaming red cock, Jongin’s hands reached upwards, finding Tao’s nipples and flicking gently.  
  
He felt his head buzzing with too many chemicals as they hardened into little tight nubs against his fingers. There wasn’t a lot of feelings he could compare this to and it wasn’t anything like he’d imagined it would feel like either. He found that it was pleasantly pleasurable to his senses too as he let the nubs roll around inside the centre of his own palms, feeling the drag of them in pleasurable connected little bursts of electricity that lit up everything right down to his wrists.  
  
Below him, Tao’s hips bucked, his cock dragging against Jongin’s slightly parted lips and wetly down his chin.  
  
As he dragged his body upwards, Jongin let every part of himself brush against Tao’s full cock. He let his own nipples linger there too, feeling them harden against the wet head of Tao’s cock.  
  
Gazing intently at the wet drag of Tao’s cock against his nipples made him wish he could reach all the way down and lick that up too. The physics of it was a little infuriating, however, when he found himself sitting up to do exactly that.  
  
He let it be, deciding to sit on Tao’s cock instead and feeling the wet and warm drag of his own against it.  
  
“We should’ve done this earlier,” Jongin said, feeling like he was losing himself as he ground his hips in a wide circle, thighs trembling as they held him upright.  
  
“Definitely earlier,” Tao agreed, dragging Jongin down with firm hands wrapped around his waist.  
  
Jongin let the fall happen, connecting his lips with the warm and sweaty skin of Tao’s neck. He licked it up, moaned at the salty sharpness of it, reflexively sucking in more skin on which to leave his mark.  
  
Tao was thrusting upwards into him frantically, his arms squeezing tighter where they were laced around Jongin’s waist. He felt trapped in a helplessly intoxicated sort of way, unable to move around much where Tao was pressing them together.  
  
They were both dripping from their slits but it wasn’t wet enough, their cocks catching through an unpleasantly dulled friction.  
  
It still felt good, immensely, something he figured was attributable to so much more than just the feeling of their naked skin rubbing up against each other. There was a spark there, sizzling first from somewhere deep and warm inside him, then spreading throughout.  
  
“Wet, Tao. Make it wet,” Jongin pleaded, managing to free himself from Tao’s hold and keeping the djinni’s wrists in place at his sides.  
  
“Spit at it,” Tao said with a serious face, bucking upwards.  
  
“W-what?” Jongin huffed, head falling back as he descended into a series of full-bodied guffaws. Tao followed him right in, arching upwards into Jongin as they both laughed.  
  
“That’s gross, come on,”  
  
“It’s nasty, hot and nasty,” Tao countered, still laughing.  
  
“Noooooo,”  
  
“Okay, you want me to lap at your hand or something? I’m not above that, but like…”  
  
“Djinn-folk, remember?” Jongin parrotted  mockingly, jabbing his index finger against Tao’s chest.  
  
“I thought we were going for one at a time?”  
  
Jongin ground his hips downwards, languidly like a terrible tease.  
  
“Yes, but wet isn’t a whole ‘nother thing, that’s just part of the package. If either of us had some lube on hand we wouldn’t be discussing this,”  
  
“How wet it wet exactly, slip and slide kind of wet?”  
  
“Shoot, okay, wait,” Jongin said around a moan.  
  
He ground his hips once leaning forward and his cock slipped in between Tao’s cheeks.  
  
They both moaned, Jongin’s arms sliding underneath Tao’s  shoulders for leverage. Another thrust, arms pulling Tao’s body to meet his thrusts with manic precision.  
  
Another and his cock pressed thickly against Tao’s hole with little give. Tao groaned, spreading his thighs as wide as they would go.  
  
Another, sloppy and frantic and this time Jongin’s back arched at a sharp angle, an insistent orgasm spilling right out of him with no prior warning.  
  
He remained frozen in place, hips twitching minutely as he rode it out, his dick throbbing as it drooled.  
  
Distantly, he could hear Tao cussing out as he held on to him firmly, hips moving vigorously like they were trying to catch up. It was dizzying and soon enough, too much.  
  
“Stop, shoot, wait,” Jongin pleaded, breathlessly. A beat later, Tao’s hips slowed down, coming to a stop after a few more thrusts.  
  
“You’re a little infuriating,” Tao accused with a wide smile dancing across his face.  
  
“Wow, I, uh,really didn’t see that one coming,” Jongin said, sheepishly, moving to lie next to Tao, his hands zeroing in on Tao’s flaming cock. The head of it looked a little purple now, angrily throbbing as it still sought out relief.  
  
Tao chuckled lightly, humouring him.  
  
He seemed very much amused and there was something else in his eyes, a little more gentle, a little more warm. Needing instead of wanting.  
  
“I wasn’t expecting that at all,” Jongin explained, head falling limp on his shoulders as he leaned downwards at a sluggish pace, following Tao’s happy trail with a flurry of kisses for apologies.  
  
He was just about to connect his pursed lips with the tip of Tao’s cock when the sound of brisk footsteps rang outside the cell, coming down from somewhere up the hall.  
  
Jongin froze in place and in that minute, the footsteps had made it all the way down to Tao’s cell and a buzzer rang shortly afterwards, the door opening wide to reveal one of the security with a man dressed like he was important and consequential at his side.  
  
Tao did not seem startled as he languidly threw the bed linen over himself and Jongin before they both sat up.  
  
“Well,” the important looking man said with a smile that looked like something anyone in their right mind should probably wary of.  
  
“I suppose that’s all the time we have for goodbyes, isn’t that right Tao?”  
  
  
  
And then, everything went black.  


 


	4. Chapter 4

 

 

The first thing that Jongin realised when the blackness receded was that he was no longer with Tao inside the prison cell. He was inside what looked like a typical government building, filling out an inordinate amount of paperwork neatly set before him.     
  
The important looking man from earlier sat in an ergonomic office chair across the conference table from him, a parker pen playing around in his fingers as he smiled a great deal. It was a mildly disturbing site.   
  
“Initial each page for me please,” the man said with a mechanical pleasantness to his voice.   
  
“What am I initialing exactly,” Jongin hazarded an inquiry, a little hesitant.   
  
He wanted to ask about Tao, but something about the way the man smiled tight and unceasing made him feel like it wouldn’t make a difference whether or not he asked.   
  
There were people milling about outside the room they were in, shadows spilling through the frosted glass separating them.   
  
“You don’t even know, do you?” the man said, leaning forward in his chair, fingers rapping with curious excitement at the edges of the table.   
  
Jongin looked to his sides like he almost expected to find someone else to which the question was being directed. He pointed a tentative index finger at himself, mouthing, “Me?” and the man nodded his head, patient.   
  
“You look human, talk human too. I suppose anyone in this position can easily make the same mistake, but don’t worry, you’ll be fully compensated for all the wishes, promised or otherwise," the man took a pause and beamed, then a minute later, seemed to remember something he'd forgotten.   
  
"Including the first one, since technically you can’t exactly grant a wish that already exists,” he said, continuing to make absolutely no sense whatsoever.   
  
“S-sir, can I call you Sir?”   
  
The important man looked like a Sir, with his important suit that looked like it might’ve cost an arm and a half in any realm, his stiff with product perfectly coiffed up hair and wire rimmed glasses.    
  
“Suho, please,” The man corrected, again with a diplomatic smile.   
  
“Suho, you lost me at ‘talk human too’. What’s going on? C-can I see Tao?”   
  
“I’m afraid that won’t do. Tao has a bad record already and this little fiasco didn’t really play off in his favour.”   
  
“Am I allowed to ask what the bad record entails?”   
  
“Oh you know, looks like trouble, talks like trouble… he’s a bit of an anarchist really, which doesn’t gel well with the legacy the Seven are trying to leave, but I won’t bore you with the details,” Suho said, perusing through the papers to see that Jongin had indeed signed off and initialed each one.   
  
“As for the first wish that was not, man, long story. But the short of it is that you’re definitely not human and Tao did not give you a  _ quirk _ even though he seems to think he did. We’re djinn-folk, not creators. Our work is mostly shadow play, can’t create life, can’t destroy life.  _ Quirks _ are intricately tied to the life source, so you see how that’s a little impossible?”   
  
Jongin looked at his fingers, curled into each other inside his lap, his eyebrows furrowed in confusion.

  
“Then what am I?” he said and was met with a wary silence.  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
“Ready?” Suho inquired as he scrawled a series of numbers into Jongin’s left wrist, diagonally. 

 

_ 17-88-92 _

 

The numbers looked random enough, but Suho had assured him that they meant something significant, specifically to him.   
  
After all that had happened, Jongin badly wanted them to mean something, significant.   
  
They were no longer alone in the room, the rest of the Seven having joined them earlier, apparently to see him off. Suho, the most important looking one among them all, was apparently the first of the Seven. Jongin couldn’t say he was surprised.   
  
Jin Ri and her sisters, along with Lu Han were dressed like they always were, standard issue desert mafia regalia. While Baekhyun and the rest wore form fitting suits, the juxtaposition a little dizzying.   
  
He wasn’t allowed to see Tao, to the very end, it seemed.   
  
Jongin's chest hurt, acutely, tears threatening to spill whenever a memory of their time together in the desert forced its way to the fore.   
  
Jongin was ready to go home, he missed home and Chanyeol, which presently felt like one in the same thing. His chest throbbed painfully against his ribcage, in any case.   
  
Sehun smiled apologetically when he entered the room a little while later, apparently to see him off as well. Suho had thought it important for Jongin to have a familiar face present, he explained.   
  
Familiar was Tao. The Seven knew that but didn’t seemed to care. And the hurt in his chest was swiftly spreading out, some of it lodging inside his throat as tiny lumps that made it hard to breathe and painful to swallow.   
  
Sehun squeezed his shoulder and it did nothing, absolutely nothing to ease his ache.   
  
“Ready?” Suho repeated, looking up into his eyes with deceptively concerned eyes.   
  
Jongi swallowed and it hurt.   
  
He nodded, and his head felt a little woozy.   
  
“Okay, so, you’ll forget a lot of things in time but don’t worry, your treasures will be kept safe. You won’t remember exactly how you obtained them, but your mind will probably try to rationalize it anyhow. Hold on tight and just remember to breathe, okay?"   
  
Jongin could feel himself saying something in the affirmative, distantly. At the very fore, he replayed Tao's voice over and over until the different inflictions of it ran and spiraled into each other, becoming white noise.   
  
“What has always been yours will remain, breathe deeply for me? One huge breath, yes, just like that…”   
  
And then he was falling, the world dark, dusty and hollow all around and above him.   
  
Sand as fine and white as baker’s sugar kept pouring from somewhere above him, the world moving very fast and past him in the opposite direction.

He took a deep breath, let the tension inside his muscles seep right out as he surrendered to the fall.   
  
When he opened his eyes next he was in his own bed, inside his flat right in the heart of Tunis, the world crawling steadily and quietly right outside his window.   
  
On the bedside table, he found a brown envelope with an intricately cut golden key inside it and instructions to present it to some bank he'd never heard of before today, situated on a whole 'nother continent altogether.   
  
The quaint little clock on the wall next to the door was ticking loudly, his heart picking up on it in a strange and painful way that he couldn’t quite explain.   
  
It hurt, something inside his chest hurt and Jongin didn’t know why.   
  
It was a little past midnight and he remembered having gone to sleep a little after ten the previous night. He’d been in Bardo's basement with Chanyeol all night but when it had started to look like the other wasn’t planning on sleeping in his own bed at all, Jongin had decided to walk alone the few blocks it took to get back to his own flat.   
  
As soon as his head had hit the pillow, he had clocked out and that had barely been four hours ago. For some reason, Jongin was convinced that so much more time had passed since then.   
  
He felt disorientated, like his feet had touched ground after months spent on turbulent seas. And his chest hurt like there were a thousand needles grating against the inside of it.   
  
There were thick aching lumps lodged inside his throat that made swallowing a desperate task.   
  
It hurt… so much.   
  
His phone buzzed underneath his pillow and it took a while before he retrieved it, but not before his saw his wrist and the numbers scrawled on it, diagonally.

 

_ 17-88-92 _

He did a quick google search and the results brought back nothing that particularly stood out.

 

For a while he just sat there, head leaning back against the wall, glassy eyes staring at nothing, breathing long and deep.   
  
_ Don’t forget to breathe. _   
  
He swiped through his phone again, google-searched the numbers with the addition of a few keywords ranging from ‘djinn’ to ‘parallel earths’. Again, nothing stood out for him.

 

He tapped at the message notification icon at the top of his screen and sighed.

It was a message from Chanyeol, time stamped 02:07  
  
Had it been that long since he’d woken up?  
  
( **Big package coming in tomorrow from an old house in Carthage, right in the heart of the ruins.)**  
  
( **Somw French expat excavated it on his property and was planning on opening a b’n’b to bring in all the tourists.** )  
  
  
( **Wait till you see the merch!)**  
  
On any other day, Jongin would be excited about the prospects. He’d be out of bed and getting ready to call a cab, but on his particular morning, it didn’t take much to see that _something_ wasn’t right. Something had gone so terribly wrong somewhere, somehow and Jongin couldn’t help but feel like he was missing _something_ crucial. He felt a little ridiculous not knowing what it was, but still insisting that nothing would ever feel right until it was fixed.  
  
( **Meet at the basement at 7 sharp!)**  
  
He looked at the numbers on his wrist again.  
  
  
  


  
  
The blue glass jug wasn’t anything special at first glance, but it had called to him, its yellow and turquoise stripes fraying under the uv light in a way that desperately called to him to examine.  
  
“It’s beautiful isn’t it?” Chanyeol said, smiling up at him wildly. He was wearing last night’s clothes, which came as no surprise.   
  
“It’s probably the most beautiful thing that came in with the rest of them, hell,the most beautiful thing the department’s managed to dig its claws into in a decade.”  
  
Jongin’s heart was pounding something terrible as he took one tentative step after another. His vision was blurry, fists clenching at his sides to distract himself from the slight tremble in his fingers.  
  
“Jongin,” came Chanyeol’s voice, alarmed.  
  
Jongin took one step further, reached his hands towards the blue glass jug and held it. He held it like a lost heirloom found. He brought it towards his chest and held onto it tighter, everything else in the room becoming blurry and unfocused.  
  
“Jongin,” Chanyeol breathed out gently.  
  
“You’re crying.”  
  
He was, the tips of his fingers coming back wet from where he’d softly dabbed against his cheeks. He didn’t feel like he’d solved the puzzle, he didn’t feel like the blue glass jug was whatever he’d felt like he’d lost. But for the first time since he’d awoken that morning, Jongin felt like he had all the pieces to whatever he’d thought was missing and significant.  
  
  
  
“ _Okay now, let’s be gentle with the merch_ ,”  
  
  
Jongin whipped his head sharply towards the direction the voice had come. There was nothing but artefacts in bubble wrap and equipment. He whipped it in the other direction, meeting Chanyeol’s worry-filled eyes and nothing else. He looked down at the blue glass jug inside his arms, furrowing his eyebrows when a niggling thought to press his ear against it suddenly hit him.  
  
Tentatively, he pressed his ear against the blue glass jug, ignoring Chanyeol’s frantic protests. It felt right, so right, except when the voice rang loud again it was in his other ear and then somewhere farther away, like there was a desert to cross before it could get to him.  
  
Carefully, he placed the blue glass jug back where he’d found it, scrambling for his keys as he ran out of the room. He could hear the voice, laughing pleasantly, absolutely delighted as it taunted him.  
  
He was on a wild goose chase, turning right and a sharp left as the voice suddenly whipped this way and that. It felt right. It felt so right.  
  
He didn’t remember when or how he’d reached his car but he remembered making a couple of unnecessary turns along the way. And now he was headed East, Carthage was in the East. He no longer heard the voice but East felt right. And it continued to feel right, right up until he made it past the ruins overlooking the Punic Port, the broken and scattered marble statue trail, down to where the sea began to stretch in that direction while the desert loomed in the other.  
  
It continued to feel right, even when he didn’t find whatever he thought he was looking for, even when he called out to no one and the voice didn’t come. And on his way back to Tunis too, straight to his apartment because work in his state wouldn’t do, it felt right too.

  
  


  
  
“Took you long enough,” the voice said, as soon as Jongin made it past the threshold. It felt so right.   
  
“Half a century to be exact, but meh, who’s counting?”   
  
“Tao,” Jongin said, voice thick on his tongue with unshed tears. Tao_ he looked like a Tao, he remembered calling him Tao_ remained seated at the edge of Jongin’s bed where he was, smiling smug like he knew some secret he couldn’t wait to taunt Jongin with.   
  
“Tao!” Jongin exclaimed before throwing the door back behind him and scrambling for his bed, falling into Tao with a painful thud. He climbed him like a tree, thighs spread apart on either side of Tao’s body, caging him in. Tao laughed, breathlessly, allowing the fall to happen but still leaning his head forward to catch Jongin’s searching lips in his own. For all the dramatics preceding it, the kiss was slow, sure, heavy with a forgotten purpose. Warm.   
  
Tao held him tightly and Jongin shuddered, sliding his tongue into Tao’s mouth to seek and hold onto whatever he’d find. The something significant and lost he’d been missing all along.

“You’re crying,” Tao said when they broke for air. He wiped at Jongin’s cheeks, slowly, reverently.

“Why’re you crying? If you cry then I’m gonna cry too,” he whined, tears beginning to fall just as easily onto his own cheeks.

“You’re such a baby,” Jongin said, poking him in the ribs and falling onto his lips once more, tasting all the unspoken answers to the questions that had been taunting him.

He held on tightly, remembering to breathe and it felt so incredibly right.

**Author's Note:**

> Wiki says "The first evidence of an exoplanet was noted as early as 1917, but was not recognized as such.[1] However, the first scientific detection of an exoplanet began in 1988. Shortly afterwards, the first confirmed detection came in 1992..."  
> 17-88-92
> 
> Yes, this is my idea of a joke since you know, Kai >>>first teaser>>>member intro>>>first to realise who he was>>>a whole lot of firsts  
> Jongin is not human because he's... get this... from Exoplanet.


End file.
